


Unwilling Imposter

by KitKatPurrpurr



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, This is my way of writing some monster lovin’, imposter/crewmate, imposter/imposter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:41:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 42,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26813065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitKatPurrpurr/pseuds/KitKatPurrpurr
Summary: Mint (Among Us OC) is an imposter hiding among his crewmates. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, especially those who show him kindness, but the reality of his situation may force his hand... and then a second imposter joins and everything spirals.Most chapters are anywhere from G-M, but specific chapters will be indicated as E in the notes where appropriate.CW: some chapters will have sexual content, some of it is dubcon. Like with the rating stuff I mentioned above, I’ll warn for it.COVER ARTNoise Gen (from MyNoise.net) for background ambience.Reference for the whole crew.
Relationships: Mint/Red, Mint/White
Comments: 60
Kudos: 148





	1. Newbie

**Author's Note:**

> Reference for Ben can be found [here](https://kitkatpurrpurr.tumblr.com/post/630842601933799424/mint-ben-the-reluctant-imposter-he-likes-to).

My first day on board the Skeld was uneventful. Our small crew of five people each took turns getting accustomed to the rather exhaustive task list, while I desperately tried to accomplish my own, which didn’t necessarily involve cleaning out the oxygen filter. Unfortunately, I failed on both accounts, and was subject to mockery for the former later on at dinner time.

“Mint, it’s really not that hard to pull a lever and clear out some leaves,” Blue jeered, the corners of his lips twisted into a sneer. Yellow laughed at his comment, adding some snide quip herself, while Red remained quiet. Our captain, Black, shushed the others as she ate, keeping her eyes trained on me, before turning to everyone else and clearing her throat to speak.

“We need to have the ship up and running by 0900 tomorrow, and we can’t have any systems down for launch. If any of you need assistance in your tasks,” she turned to face me again, “I recommend partnering up. But remember, 0900 hours. Be up by 0730 for breakfast.”

Taking the last few bites of her food, she stood up and took the remnants over to the trash chute. Her eyes passed over mine as she left for her room, and Blue and Yellow followed suit shortly after. With Red lingering, I reached a hand up to him when he stood, and he hesitated.

“C.....could we maybe...” I found the words difficult to say. Perhaps having someone watching me wasn’t such a good idea... but before I could back out, he gave me a smile and chuckled.

“No worries, Mint, I’ve gotcha.” His voice hinted at an accent that was different than the others’, which struck me. “Sometimes the levers can get stuck, and no offense, but a string bean such as you? Well, I can see you havin’ trouble.”

Red dumped the scraps of his meal into the trash chute and as he walked by on his way out, ruffled my hair, another one of those warm, deep chuckles leaving him.

“See you at 0800.”

And with that, I was alone. I’d poked at my meal the entire time, only taking a few bites here and there, but mostly keeping it under my tongue. Without prying eyes around, I spat it back out onto my plate, trying to wipe the taste of rehydrated..... something, off my tongue. Sighing, I picked up the wasted food and put it in the chute, but as I turned around, my eyes lingered on the bright red ‘EMERGENCY’ button in the middle of the room.

I desperately hoped that we’d never have to use it, but of course, I knew better.

—

It was 0800, the following day, and Red was in his full suit waiting for me outside of electrical. Giving me a pat on the back as I got close, he led me into the room, being oh-so trusting of me. As we rounded the wall of electrical panels and cables, I thought of how easy it would be to take him down right now, with no one around... but I couldn’t. For one, I knew that Black would be in security, keeping tabs on all of us, but even more so, I admired Red going out of his way to help me out. Especially since I so clearly didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

Opening up the panel on the wall, he began to work, and I tried to focus on his hands as he dragged wires around. My secondary mouth on my chest began to unfurl away from my body, the tongue within trying desperately to lash out and paralyze him, as I felt myself shake ever so slightly in hunger.

_No_ , I thought to myself, _not him_.

Red glanced back at me, and I quickly clamped my second mouth shut, giving him a nervous smile.

“Here, you try.” He took my hand and guided it over to the panel, then directed it from each wire to its mate, until everything was connected. A smile crossed my lips, and when I looked back at him, I noticed he had one as well. Even through the visor, his strong jaw and charming dimplescould be seen easily, and against my better judgement, found myself feeling... safe? Perhaps I wouldn’t have to hurt anyone. He and I could stick together, maybe I could actually learn the ropes, be a helpful crewmate instead of-

“Hey, if you guys are done fixing up the wiring, we need extra power to both engines for the launch. Black’s orders.”

Yellow’s voice broke through the fantasy, and my gut churned. I knew I couldn’t spend all my time with Red.

And I couldn’t go forever without a proper meal.

Red waved Yellow off and put a thumb to his visor thoughtfully as he replaced the panel on the wall.

“Mint, do you think you could go adjust the power? It’s as simple as sliding up the switches on that computer over there.” He gesticulated a few feet to the left. “Just make sure to only do the engines. I’ll head over to the engine rooms to take care of the rest.” I nodded at him, apprehensive about having this much responsibility (as someone woefully unqualified, even if it was a simple task), and I watched him turn away from me to leave.

Every perfect opportunity was there to kill him, but I swallowed down the urge. I didn’t want to hurt him, and especially this early on, I’d be top suspect. My gaze flittered over to the vent, and as my heart began to race, I longed to hide there until I expired, but I had a job to do. And Red was counting on me.

I stepped over to the computer screen, a map of the ship and the power grid displayed in black and yellow. Looking down at the sliding switches, I saw tape above them denoting which room they affected, and I hovered my fingers above the two for the engines. A third finger danced over another, knowing that if I really wanted to, I could overload the circuit, prevent the launch, and I wouldn’t have to go through with my mission. It would be so easy to end it all right there...

But I knew what I had to do.

With the engines now powered to the brim, I left electrical and sat down among the boxes in storage, pressing a hand to my stomach, which only made it ripple disapprovingly. I had to go as long as possible without eating, in order to avoid suspicion, which would be difficult, especially since I couldn’t eat through the mouth I spoke with, so even at mealtime I was faking. Hell, I had to fake everything! Including being nice... bah.

By the time I made it to the cafeteria for the launch, everyone but Red was there, and I began to panic. As far as I knew, no one else on board was like me, so where was he? Black tapped her foot impatiently and put her hands on her hips.

“Mint,” she barked, “you saw him last, where is Red?” I quickly shrugged, but just as she was about to respond, Red walked in, readjusting his suit a bit.

“Where were you?” Black’s words were sharp and even Blue took a small step back.

“Sorry, stopped to use the bathroom on the way back. I mean,” he pointed to the clock, “we _are_ early.”

Black opened her mouth to retort back, but chose not to and scowled instead, which earned a few giggles from the other crewmates. Taking a moment to recompose herself, she cleared her throat.

“I want all of you here in the cafeteria during the launch. Once we’re through the atmosphere and on course, I will reconvene with you all and pass out the list of maintenance tasks I want each of you to complete daily.” Blue and Yellow glanced at each other, then over at Red and I, and I noticed Blue giving me a mischievous grin, which unnerved me. What was he planning? He couldn’t also be an imposter, right? At least, I figured I would know.

Black left the cafeteria as the four of us sat down. This really was it, the five of us launched into space for the next six months until the next shift change. Four humans and one imposter. I only wished it hadn’t been me sent out on this mission.

Red was next to me, and he placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder, which made me jump at first.

“Hey, first time in space is always the worst. You miss home, but eventually the work becomes routine, and it’s not so bad.” He offered me another warm smile and I could only feel my guilt rise in response. And yet, I smiled back anyway.

“Yeah, first time is always the worst.”


	2. Good Intentions

A month and a half had passed since the launch, and I felt my hunger rise with each passing day. And each day I would stand at my mirror, hugging my arms with my eyes shut tightly, and think if maybe I wished hard enough, I could be a human just like my crewmates… like Red… and that maybe I could avoid making a mess of things. Things like this never used to cross my mind before I was assigned to the Skeld, but then again, I’d never had to kill things smarter than your average earthly animal.

Red did his best to help me with tasks, which I learned slowly but surely, but I think Blue liked to pull him away from me for shits and giggles. He’d tell him that Black needed him in navigation, then proceed to use the time alone with me to wear me down.

“Did you even train for this mission? What idiot can’t connect two wires after being shown a thousand times?”

This was every day, damn near, ad nauseum.

—

After an entire day of clearing asteroids from our path, I stumbled to the cafeteria for dinner. The ship’s defense interface always managed to make me motion sick, and it took all of my strength not to vomit out of my second mouth on my way into the room, where everyone else was already eating. My hand was clenched to my stomach, desperately holding it to me. It wasn’t until I placed my helmet down on the bench next to me that I looked up at the rest of the crew.

“Jesus, Mint, you’re not supposed to spend _all day_ at the computer. If not for your suit color, I’d think you were green!” Blue’s comments did nothing but worsen my already poor mood, but I said nothing, afraid of getting too worked up. Red slid a bag of food my way.

“Figured you didn’t want to spend the energy heatin’ it up,” he murmured to me. I nodded gratefully and after removing my gloves, placed my hands on either side of the bag, enjoying the warmth and silently wishing it were a real meal for me. Maybe today I could try to choke down some of it when they were gone, though it probably wouldn’t settle well in my stomach.

“Actually, why _did_ it take you so long to clear those asteroids, hmm?” Blue sat forward and stared at me, his eyes burning holes in my head. “Honestly, it seems a bit _suspicious_ , don’t you guys think?”

Yellow of course nodded along, but Black, who had been watching this unfold, said nothing and in fact refused to acknowledge Blue’s words at all. He’d glanced over at the captain, hoping for some validation, but when he received none, decided to open his moronic mouth and add more fuel to the fire.

“You know, before I took this job, I heard rumors of _imposters_ , monsters who would infiltrate space crews and attempt to kill everyone on board.”

My whole body froze up and I dropped my fork onto my lap. Blue merely smirked as he watched this happen, while Yellow’s eyes widened.

“Oh shit… you don’t think they’re real, do you?” Her question was innocent enough, but with Blue’s gaze bearing down on me, I knew he’d been hoping she would ask. Red said nothing and kept his head down as he ate.

“They are. I have friends who were on board ships with imposters. They’d notice one of their crewmates struggling with a task, more than you’d expect someone who _trained for this position_ should, and then crewmates would mysteriously turn up dead, be it torn in half, partially eaten, you name it.” The evil grin on Blue’s mouth grew with each breath, and I finally gained the courage to meet his gaze, where I found the most piercing, accusatory look waiting for me.

Despite the fact I was starving, he’d managed to completely ruin my appetite.

Yellow finally took note of where Blue was looking and soon her gaze joined his.

“Wait, are you saying… Mint is…?” Before she could continue, Blue stood up and pointed at me, leaning forward on the table.

“You! You’re an imposter!” I fell off the bench backwards, clutching where I thought my heart would leap out of my chest. However, I didn’t anticipate Red to stand as well, swatting Blue’s accusatory finger away.

“Hey! I’ve been on board with imposters before, and I can tell you, he’s not one!” My eyes widened as he spoke, having forgotten that, besides Black, Red was the only one with any former experience on board a spaceship. And now here he was, defending me when he didn’t even really know me.

“Look around you. Does it look like anyone has turned up dead?” He spat at Blue, and all the other man could do was scoff.

And then Black stood up.

“Enough, both of you.” She stepped over towards me and held out her hand to help me off the floor, and I graciously took it. I wiped myself off and reluctantly sat down on the bench again, while the other two men each regained composure and lowered themselves back down as well. Black moved to the head of the table and leaned forward, glaring at both crewmates, though mostly at Blue and narrowed her eyes.

“Now, NO ONE is getting ejected. Mint has done nothing wrong, even if he _is_ slow with his tasks. Like Red said, no one’s been killed, and I refuse to feed into the fear that we have an _imposter_ on board.” She leaned back and snorted quietly. “Every one of you was screened to prevent such a thing, and that’s the end of it.”

Grabbing her food scraps, she went to toss the rest in the chute, followed by Yellow, who seemed disturbed by the way dinner had gone. Red stood up as well, not giving me any kind of look as he left, which felt like a kick to the stomach for some reason, and then it was only Blue and I.

If he really was another imposter, then I didn’t have the slightest clue what kind of sick power play he was trying to do, but somehow, I didn’t think that was the case. And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could go without eating.

Blue stood up to toss his things, and I was about to do the same, but when I turned around, he pinned me down to the table by the neck, and I gasped.

“I swear to fucking god, if you don’t start getting your shit done faster, then I’m not going to wait for a majority vote to kick you out. ‘Cause I don’t trust you for shit.” Tears formed in my eyes as he gripped me, but after a few moments, he released my neck and stormed off to his room. He hadn’t left marks on me, but I could still feel where he’d almost choked me.

Slowly, the tears began to flow, and I hugged myself, thoughts spinning a mile a minute. It wasn’t my fault that the tasks were hard for a creature like me to learn! I wasn’t made for this kind of thing! Swallowing down a sob, I dumped my bag of food into my second mouth quickly and tried to ignore the taste as it went down. Hopefully it would sate me enough that I could keep holding off…

—

I tossed and turned in bed for hours before glancing over at my clock, which read 0243. Sitting up, I ran my fingers through my hair and yawned with both mouths, feeling some of my true teeth poke out of my upper mouth. I dearly missed my true form, but I knew how hard it was to go back once I reverted, and while not impossible, it would require far more energy than I had left in reserve.

My thoughts trailed back to earlier, with Red defending me from totally, but unknowingly, accurate accusations, and how he’d disregarded me after. It really stuck in my head, fearing that perhaps some of Blue’s words had gotten to him, made him really question me. Aside from the lack of bodies, nothing he’d said was particularly inaccurate, and just because Red was nice to me didn’t mean I suddenly _couldn’t_ be an imposter. Part of me knew I needed to go check in with Red, even if the rest of me was terrified of the possibility that he’d realize the truth.

Sliding my legs to the edge of the bed, I stood up and stretched, pulling on a robe and slippers, before grabbing my ID and heading out of my room. It was an extremely short walk to his door, and scanning my badge on the reader, waited for approval to enter. As the seconds passed, I felt my anxiety driving me to abandon this idea and run back to my room, but I stood there anyway, quickly scanning my badge a second time and waiting a little bit longer. Again, no response, and I took a step back, about to leave when the door opened.

“Mint…?”

Red stood in the doorway, looking more than half asleep with his hair messed up and wearing nothing but a loose t-shirt and boxers. I looked up at him, a little embarrassed knowing I’d interrupted his sleep (though I knew I would be anyway), but stepped forward regardless to speak to him.

“H-hey, I, um, I couldn’t sleep. And… I-I wanted to talk to you.” Rubbing the back of my head, I felt a few beads of sweat roll down my neck. It really shouldn’t have been this hard to talk to Red, but there I was, trying not to stammer my way through a couple sentences.

Red took a moment to process my words and yawned, pushing the door open a little further so I could enter. As I stepped in, I noticed some tools and parts on his desk, clearly something he’d been fiddling with in his spare time, while the rest of his room remained fairly clean. Flicking on his lamp, he sat down on his bed and stretched, looking at me with a rather glazed over expression. My face went red again and I leaned back against his desk, glancing down at the floor as I formulated my thoughts.

“I… I just wanted to say thank you. You know, for-for earlier. You didn’t have to defend me from Blue-” Red’s hand came up and he waved me off.

“Stop, stop. You don’t need to thank me.” Having expected to continue, my mouth hung open, but I quickly closed it. “Blue’s an ass, and no one’s perfect at this job. Like I said, imposters make no attempt to actually help, and they kill as often as possible.”

I knew I should have felt relieved that I didn’t give him any red flags, but his words were like knives across my skin. By subverting his expectations, I was taking advantage of his trust, and it _bothered_ me. _Why_ did it bother me??

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” My gaze stayed pointed at the floor, but when he chuckled, I looked into his eyes, my brow raised. He gave me an affectionate smile and the hint of a grin peeked out from his lips.

“I mean, seems more to me like you’re just making excuses to spend time with me.” My eyes shot open and I felt my cheeks flush, and lifting my hand to my cheek, rubbed it a little aggressively, which earned a laugh from Red.

“It’s fine, Mint. Don’t worry about it.” Something in his voice betrayed that sentiment though, as though perhaps it did mean something to _him_ , and when I looked back up at him, his gaze remained soft. “You’re a nice guy, probably the most pleasant person on this ship I have to work with. So you won’t see me complaining.”

Why was Red being so nice? Even if he really believed what he was saying, the _way_ he said it made me flustered… and I couldn’t pick out why! I averted my gaze as he stood up from his bed and moved over to me, and when he placed his hand on my shoulder, I felt tingles echo from his touch, all the way down to my feet. Gasping, I almost moved away, but he continued to smile at me, and I couldn’t avoid looking back up into his hazel eyes. He was so close I could hear him breathing, and the physical proximity nearly made me shift.

“Mint?” His voice was low, and I felt my breath shaking as I studied all of the features of his face so close up.

“Y-yeah?” The word barely escaped me.

“Would you like me to walk you back to your room?” The sensation of his thumb tenderly rubbing my shoulder made me shiver, and I could have melted onto the floor right there. It took all my energy to nod slowly at him in response.

Every synapse in my brain felt like it was firing as his hand slid to my back to lead me out, and almost tripping on the way out, I tried to hide the returning blush on my cheeks. Of course, the walk to my room was over in less than a minute, but the entire time I didn’t want to feel his hand leave me. I wanted to tug him into my room, pin him to the wall and demand to know why he was being so nice to me. Ask him why every touch of his felt like fire on my skin, and why I wanted him pressed up to me… because this was a very different kind of hunger I found myself feeling.

I opened the door and stepped inside, turning back to say goodnight to Red, and once again I was caught in his gaze in the dark. My heart raced, and I almost reached out to him. A warm chuckle rose up in his throat and he gave me a warm smile as he ruffled my hair, just like he’d done on day one.

“Goodnight, Mint. See you at 0800 hours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, so begins the slow burn, which is new for me, normally things happen pretty quickly. Mint is aware of sexual desire, but he's never experienced romantic desire, and as the two mix, he becomes very confused, haha.
> 
> This chapter was initially going to include the scene that I'm putting in chapter 3, but for brevity's sake I'm keeping it separate, otherwise this chapter might have wound up 1.5-2x longer, aha.


	3. Desperate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M-E for violence.
> 
> Ben's true form looks like [this](https://kitkatpurrpurr.tumblr.com/post/630930065500323840/ben-mint-and-kyle-whites-true-imposter-forms).

Bright and early the following day, I rolled around in my bed, having barely slept the entire night. The sensation of Red’s hand from the night before stayed with me, and my mind tied itself into knots trying to work out what kind of tricks he was playing on me. We were crewmates, at least, as far as he knew. We were friends, yes, but something about the way he spoke to me felt like he viewed me as something more than that, but I’d never encountered anything like it before.

Groaning, I stood up and got dressed, trying my best to push the thoughts out, but the moment I left my room and saw Red standing outside of his, I felt the heat in my chest rise up again. He’d been waiting for me, and for once, I was thankful for my helmet visor obscuring my face.

“Everyone else already left, figured you’d like some company on the way to the cafeteria.” I gave him a small smile and walked alongside him towards the stairs. “Seemed like Blue spooked you pretty good last night.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and shrugged.

“I just didn’t realize that struggling with tasks was something people would find suspicious. And there he was, trying to get me thrown out of the airlock for it.” I rubbed my arm nervously as we rose up the stairs.

“I wouldn’t pay him any mind, if you can. He’ll get what’s coming to him for trying to start shit.” I glanced at Red, unsure of the implication behind his words, but before I could ask him about it, we arrived in the cafeteria, with the rest of the crew staring at us impatiently. Black wasted no time getting to the daily announcements once we jogged over.

“Starting today, I need everyone up to speed on their tasks. Red, I appreciate you taking it upon yourself to help Mint, but his improvement is lacking, and I’d like him to partner up with someone who has demonstrated proficiency in their tasks.” She turned to Blue and gestured from him to me, and my second mouth almost dropped open in fear. For a moment, I thought I saw Red’s face pale behind his visor.

“Blue, I want you and Mint paired up today in electrical and storage. See to it he’s as fast as you by 1700. If not, I want the both of you to report to admin.”

My eyes trailed up to Blue’s, and the contempt emanating from them was palpable. I averted my gaze and stared at the panels on the floor as Black finished doling out duties, and once the other three left, with Red hesitating for a second as he went to the engine rooms, Blue dropped his hand on my shoulder and gripped it tightly, leading me out of the cafeteria. Moving his head in close, he tried to dig his nails into me through his gloves.

“You’d better fucking learn quickly then.”

I balled my fists and let him take me down to electrical, and sweat started to form inside my suit, which made me desperately crave a shower. Providing no real help, Blue leaned back on the wall and crossed his arms, observing my movements with an intent look upon his face. Delicately unscrewing the panel on the wall, I struggled to keep a grip on it as it tried to fall, and when it slipped out of my hands, it clattered to the floor, Blue groaning.

“Seriously? _That_ was difficult?” I clenched my eyes shut and gritted my teeth, bracing myself for more insults, but when none came, I released the tension and exhaled.

_Just like Red showed me, yellow to yellow, purple to purple, blue to blue, and red to-_

“Just do it already! Jesus! This is basic color matching!” Blue barked the words at me, and I faltered, briefly attaching purple to yellow. Upon seeing this, he stepped towards me rather aggressively and pushed me aside to disconnect them. Turning to face me, he pushed my shoulders against the adjacent electrical box and growled.

“This shit is so easy a _toddler_ could do it. Try it again.” And he released me.

Now my hands were shaking, and I knew that trying to do this would be even harder. Quickly reciting my instructions in my head again, I managed to connect yellow to yellow and red to red, but I hesitated when connecting blue and, again, accidentally connected it to purple. This time, my shoulder was tugged backwards, and after Blue yanked the improperly connected wires apart, whipped around to nail me with a strong punch to the chest.

I coughed as I hit the opposite wall, the wind temporarily knocked out of me, and as I watched him wind up another, I threw my hands up in defeat.

“P-please don’t hurt me!” But he ignored me.

The next blow landed right on my sternum, and I whined, spitting blood out of my mouth onto the inside of my helmet. Before I could react further, I felt a strong kick to my side, and I collapsed to the floor, trying to curl up and protect myself.

“You’re never going to learn, are you? You’re always gonna fuck it up because you _can’t_ do it. You’re an imposter, and I’m not gonna let you kill any one of us, you sick freak!” A hard stomp to my helmet cracked the plastic of my visor, and another soon followed, shattering it. Tears had welled up in my eyes and began spilling onto the floor.

I really had tried, I’d tried so desperately to be like them, but I just couldn’t do it. Blue was right, and nothing I could ever do or say would convince him otherwise. A low whine left my lips as he continued kicking me, and turning my head towards the door, focused all my energy to close it, even though I couldn’t see it. The _click_ of the door lock was barely audible, and Blue took no notice.

Slowly rolling onto my back through the kicks, wincing with each blow, I stared up at him, and spitting blood onto his boots, I contorted my face into a snarl.

“Hey Blue,” this caught him off guard, and he paused his assault.

“How does it feel to be _right?_ ”

For the first time in forever, my second mouth unfurled completely, and my tongue shot out, lashing against his shins, and in seconds, his legs wobbled and he collapsed to the ground as the toxins went to work. Blue gasped and put an arm out to support himself, and straining his head to look at me, growled deeply.

“Y-you-!”

Undoing my helmet, I shook it off and crawled onto my all fours, allowing my claws and head to begin reverting back to their true shape, while gnashing my teeth together.

Finally, I had a meal in sight, and this one I didn’t feel bad about killing.

Springing forward, I tackled Blue back onto the floor, and raising a fist up, brought it down on his visor to shatter it with one swift movement. The gravity of his situation had settled on him, and he began to cry out for help. Even with the doors locked, I didn’t want to draw suspicion to the area, and opening my mouth, quickly clamped down on his throat before jerking my head up and tearing out his throat. He continued to gurgle through the blood, and I unleashed a deep grumble from my throat. All he had to do was leave me alone and I probably wouldn’t have killed him, but that was asking too much from someone that bone-headed.

Ripping through Blue’s space suit, I lowered myself onto his torso more and allowed my lower mouth to go to work consuming him, while I watched the fight leave his eyes. Every fiber of my being felt the energy return to it, and for a brief moment, I was so caught up in enjoying my meal that I completely forgot the horrible situation I was now in. My head began to shift back to my human form, and I stood up, taking in the gruesome scene before me.

_Oh fuck, oh fuck…_

What could I do to hide this? I couldn’t put him in the vents, his decaying body would eventually be found, and I was the last person with him. And after the previous night’s accusations... 

I welled up, my whole body shaking, and looking down at the blood on my hands, started to gasp for air, my vision getting a little fuzzy as my mind raced. Clutching my chest, I thought for just a moment, before forcefully unlocking the doors to electrical, then locking the ones for storage. Part of Blue’s suit was still un-bloodied, and I tore it off, setting it aside. Dragging his corpse to the airlock, I quickly shed my own suit and placed it on the platform. Using my newfound strength, I shoved the eject lever down and the door on the airlock shut, and in seconds all of the primary evidence of my crime was gone.

I turned back around and saw a small blood trail leading to the airlock, and with a grimace, I bent down and used my second tongue to lick it up, until not a single drop remained. There was no way I could keep storage’s doors closed, so I retreated to electrical and unlocked storage, while locking electrical behind me. Like before, I cleaned up every bit of the mess where he’d died, and afterwards, for the first time since boarding, I ducked into the vents, crawling through and downwards to our rooms. I could clean myself up for now in the sink and take a proper shower later.

My heart was still racing, hoping that no one would be checking on electrical, and I hurriedly wiped myself off while grabbing a spare suit. As I lifted myself back into the vents, I tried (unsuccessfully) to steady my breathing. I could hear Yellow milling about in medbay, and I went deathly silent as I passed by, climbing out and back into electrical, where I picked up the spare piece of fabric from earlier.

With the doors unlocked, I ran over to the airlock and shoved the fabric into the wall near the lever. Of course, even with the perfect setup, I still had to play my part convincingly, and no matter how good my cover, I was still suspect number one. But now it was time to draw the curtains and begin.

_DEAD BODY REPORTED, PLEASE HEAD TO CAFETERIA._

Booking my ass through the hallways, I desperately hoped to be the first one to arrive, and sure enough, I arrived to see no one, until Black skidded to a stop at the east entrance of the cafeteria. Red and Yellow entered moments after, and it only took them seconds of not seeing _Blue_ for them to stare down at me.

“Mint, what’s going on? You called this alarm?” Black placed her hand on my shoulder and shook me a little, and meeting her gaze, I felt myself hesitate.

Closing my eyes, I put myself back to the scene not even 20 minutes ago, remembering how Blue had yelled at me, then knocked me to the floor. Every kick and stomp leaving bruises along my body. The overwhelming fear I’d felt was coming back to me, and I started to well up.

“H-He… Blue, he was showing me t-the garbage airlock, and…” A low sob rose in my throat, and I shuddered. Black squatted down and looked up into my eyes, which only made this harder to do. I knew I was only doing what I had to do to survive, both in killing Blue and lying now to my crewmates, but it still didn’t make me feel very good.

“He stood too close to the door and.... It snagged on his suit.” I wiped away the tears with my hands, and Black glanced over at the others, motioning with her thumb to go check the airlock, which they both immediately ran off to do. Pulling off her helmet, she moved me back to a bench and sat me down, helping me remove my own helmet as well.

“That’s… troubling to hear.” Her voice betrayed no emotion, and she remained silent until the others had returned. Red held the fabric of Blue’s suit in his hand, which I spotted out of the corner of my eye, relieved.

“I think he’s telling the truth, Black.” Red kept his voice low, hauntingly soft, as he removed his helmet, and Yellow followed suit.

“It’s a little fishy, but…” she glanced down at me pitifully, which surprised me, especially after last night.

Black rubbed my shoulder as my tears subsided, and I took a few more ragged breaths before looking up at the others.

“It’s alright, Mint. Sometimes accidents happen. But now we’re short a full crew, and Headquarters will require a larger crew when we return. Which… we’ll have to do immediately.” She rubbed her eyes, unable to hide the exasperated sigh that followed, and when she stood up, waved us off.

“I’m going to navigation. The three of you finish whatever tasks you have left and we’ll reconvene here for dinner.”

Yellow was the first to leave after Black, and Red stood in the cafeteria watching me with a distressed look across his face, before turning and heading back to the engine rooms. I was determined to at least finish the wiring task I’d been trying to complete earlier, but the faint, yet for me overwhelming, scent of blood was a constant distraction the entire time.

—

I finished my shower late into the night, wanting to avoid drawing any more suspicion, and around 2300 hours was back in my room, sitting in silence in the dark. Of course, it wasn’t all that dark to me, but anyone else on board would have trouble seeing. That meal would have satisfied me for almost the remainder of the trip, but with us returning, I knew that would mean an extension of my initial mission… and another person, or two, who I’d have to kill.

_RED REQUESTING ENTRY._

I was shaken from my thoughts upon hearing the computer’s voice, and after a moment of hesitation, called out a response.

“Door, open.”

I flicked on my lamp, cringing at the bright light, as Red entered my room. He offered me a polite smile and closed the door behind him.

“Is it alright if I sit?” Seeing him gesture to the foot of my bed, I nodded and sat forward a bit, holding my arms, watching him lower himself down. I tilted my head to the side and looked up at him.

“So… what’s up?” This was met with a barely-audible sigh and a look of concern.

“Well… earlier. You looked pretty shaken up, and you barely ate dinner. I didn’t get a chance to check on you.” My stomach churned and I pulled back a little bit.

“I mean, you don’t have to check on me.” One of my hands slid to the blanket and gripped it tightly, but before I could add anything else, I heard Red scoff.

“Mint, come on. I consider us friends, and you had me really worried.” Once again, that familiar burning sensation from this morning rose up in my chest, and I felt the itch to run coursing through me. Instead, I bounced my knee and softly tapped my finger on my arm.

“I’ve seen crewmates die before, right in front of me.” My eyes trailed up to his, and we locked gazes. Now that I was truly studying his, I could see that same haunted look from before, coming from somewhere deep inside of him, and I felt my vision fog over as he spoke.

“I’ve watched them get shot out of the airlock, stabbed with piercing tongues, torn apart…” For once, Red’s words failed him, and he looked away to the floor, and perhaps in a moment of weakness, I pulled the blanket off my legs and scooted closer to him. As I moved to place my hand on his, I stopped, but when he lifted his and gently took mine, I felt my breath hitch, and I tried to suppress a full-body shiver. But he did not look up at me.

“It’s a truly awful thing to witness. And I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Dying so far from home is such a terrible way to go.” I opened my mouth to respond but found I had no comforting words to offer him. Despite being an imposter, the sentiment rang true to me, and was yet another reason why I wished I hadn’t been sent on this mission. The only solace I had for him was that at least he hadn’t been around to see how his crewmate truly died, but of course I remained silent.

Lifting his head up, Red looked back up into my eyes and now, closer than ever before, I could see a fire burning within him, and I couldn’t quite place what it was. Something told me, though, that it involved me. A very faint blush formed across my cheeks as we held each other’s gaze, but I couldn’t turn away. The smile returned to Red’s lips and his eyes softened.

“There’s nothing bad in you, Mint. You shouldn’t have to go through the same shit I have. And, if you’ll let me,” his grip on my hand tightened, “I want to protect you. Especially once we get new crewmates.” A fog returned to his eyes. “I know we don’t know who we can trust, but... I trust you.”

There were endless reasons I should have pushed him away and rejected his offer to keep me safe. He had fully committed to this idea that I was an innocent being in need of a guardian, and knowing better, I should have told him to worry about himself. But instead I interlaced my fingers with his as my breath deepened and eyes closed.

“Red…” I was at a loss for words.

I felt a small tug on my arm and I leaned forward, where I felt my forehead and nose touch his. Briefly flickering my eyes open, I saw his were shut, and with a small smile, shut my own again. Time stood still as we sat there, listening to each other breathing and reveling in the contact, even if it was mild. But soon, my body felt like it was tugging itself towards him, and I stirred.

“Mm… sorry…” I quietly apologized as my blush returned to me, but instead of responding with words, Red leaned forward and placed a delicate kiss on my forehead.

It felt like a bolt of lightning directly from my head to my toes, and I struggled to hold myself up, my mouth hanging open. Red could only chuckle at my reaction, then moved his other hand to my chin. He tilted my head up, and I gasped softly, watching as he moved in for another kiss. I was sure I’d pull away, avoid letting this get any further, but I’d already leaned in to meet his lips, and in that instant, slid a hand across his lap to hold his far side.

The experience of being lip-locked while he gently giggled was a new one, and I wondered if this was part of human sexuality. But if it were, wouldn’t he be naked? I was interested, but I didn’t want to expose myself to any of the humans, afraid that perhaps they’d see the line where my second mouth opened, but… I was a fool, just like Red.

Reaching down to pull off my shirt, I realized too late that I was in fact exposing the bruises and wounds from earlier, and before I could pull it back on, Red had glanced down and grabbed the hem, holding it up.

“What… what happened to you?” He’d completely pulled away from me now and I scooted back a bit, cringing.

“N-nothing, it’s nothing. I promise.” Probably the clearest lie I’d ever told him up till now.

“No, that’s not nothing.” Alarm filled his voice, which made my heart race, and I wished I’d continued just kissing him. And of course, when I tried, he pushed me away.

“Mint, was this Blue’s doing?” _Right to the core of it, of course_ … I felt myself shake and tears try to well up in my eyes. One of his hands carefully traced a bruise on my chest, dangerously close to my mouth, and I grabbed his wrist.

“Please, don’t. Don’t… tell anyone. It was an accident, but…” I took in a ragged breath, “This… was not.”

Feeling him struggle against my grip, I released him and dropped my hands to the bed. Red moved his hands to my sides, which I flinched at, but avoided otherwise reacting to, and he carefully pulled himself closer. Once again, he placed his forehead on mine.

“I’m so sorry Mint…” He merely whispered his words, yet in the silence of my room, they were almost deafening. My tears renewed and I placed my hands low on his hips, aching to have him comfort me more closely. Looking up into his eyes, I sniffed back some mucous and took a deep breath.

“Could… could you stay with me? For tonight?” Without any hesitation, Red closed his eyes and nodded, and I tugged on his torso to pull him further onto the bed. He’d moved against the wall and after I turned around to turn off the lights, I moved back and faced him, glancing up into his eyes, which were now searching for mine in the dark. As if to help him gain his bearings, I slid up the bed and pressed our lips together, wanting to feel the electrifying fire burning between us again.

One of his arms slid under the pillow and cradled my head, while the other held me close protectively, and feeling true comfort, kept my hands on his shoulders as I succumbed to sleep beside him.


	4. You're Not Alone Anymore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are curious, [here's](https://imgur.com/a/pSDju2H) what the ship layout is for my fic.

* * *

We were flying through space back towards earth, returning to restaff the ship and restock, and all I could think about was how this was my golden opportunity to finish my mission without having to kill anyone else. I’d faltered once before right before we left, and that decision haunted me, especially now with Blue now nothing more than frozen space debris. As much of an ass as he’d been, all he wanted to do was protect his crewmates, and he died trying, to the very thing he was afraid of.

There had to be something else I could do to get this over with. I didn’t have the willpower to kill anyone else.

I wracked my brain for days to come up with ways to get us back faster, but repeatedly drew a blank. The Skeld was capable of hyperdrive, but only for emergencies, and while I could have just ejected the remaining fuel, it would have been highly suspect of me, and I didn’t want us stranded. What was worse was that Red accompanied me closely everywhere I went, wanting to keep me safe, which only served to distract me and keep me from being able to hunt around for something I could exploit… until the perfect idea was practically handed to me.

The two of us removed our helmets and wandered into the cafeteria, but were confused when we saw Black and Yellow standing around the food dispenser. Black was tugging on a bag, which was partially stuck in the chute, but after a few good yanks it gave way and came out, and she handed it to Yellow.

“Christ, I have no idea what’s up with this thing. Some of the metal must have been improperly welded shut and snagged or something.” Pressing the button to dispense another, this one came all the way down, and she handed it to Red. She repeated the process until everyone had food, but once she turned away, I stuck my hand up into the chute and felt around. I couldn’t detect anything immediate, but I knew that I could work with this. If they couldn’t eat, that was absolutely grounds to use the hyperdrive.

Swiftly following my captain back over to the table, I sat down beside Red and, as always, poked at my food, “eating” just enough that my crewmates wouldn’t suspect me. My mind was far away from whatever conversation they were having, consumed with planning my path back into the cafeteria later tonight.

As we said our goodnights, I entered my room and paced around, desperately trying to remember where the security cameras were. As a precaution, Black set the cameras to record overnight, and even though I could easily get close enough to the comms room to cut them, it would immediately arouse suspicion, especially when I could just move around the cameras in the first place.

Shedding most of my clothes until I was in nothing but boxers and a tank top, I climbed up into the vent in my room and quietly crept my way to the floor above, dipping off to the side to enter electrical. The quiet hum of equipment, along with the gentle rumble of the engines, were the only thing accompanying me, and as I exited the vent and headed into storage, I marveled at how peaceful space flight was when no one was keeping an eye on me. Still, I had a task I needed to complete. Before I went into the hallway near comms, I looked around for a camera and saw none, but I knew I had to be close to one. I passed comms and entered shields, where I jumped into the nearest vent, and I crawled my way to navigation. Popping out, I spotted the security camera pointed at the hallway just outside the room, and I felt my gut drop. It was by sheer luck that another vent was in the room, since I’d never actually been in here before. I darted over and made my way to the next area, which happened to be weapons, and knowing there was no camera in that hallway, scurried over to the cafeteria. If I’d simply walked in from the stairs on the other side of the caf, it would have taken me a fraction of the time, but of course, there was a camera pointed right at the stairwell.

Approaching the dispenser chute, I reached my hand in again, slowly shifting it back to its true form to get better reach. Even with the extra leverage, I felt nothing. Still, if Black believed that a piece of metal had come loose, then I would make that happen.

I pulled my one hand out of the chute and placed both of them on the wall, parallel to where I knew it was inside, and closing my eyes, focused all my energy on bending the steel. It was one thing to close and lock a door that had that capability built in, but another to bend welded metal, and it required significantly more energy. Gritting my teeth, I slowly slid my hands down, hearing the unmistakable sound of the steel breaking free from its welds and bending back, until I could no longer force it any further. I shoved my hand up the chute once again, reaching with my claws, and at the tip of them felt the metal plate now blocking the entire duct. For good measure, I pressed the dispenser button repeatedly. Bags of food began to back up in the chute, and feeling my job was done, shifted my hand back and darted back over to weapons.

—

My sleep was interrupted the following morning by the emergency alarm, and I hurriedly pulled on my robe and slippers before exiting, taking one last glance at the clock. _0658, probably Black then_. I rushed up the stairs, closely followed by Yellow and Red, before making it to the cafeteria, and sure enough, Black was standing there in her suit beside the food dispenser.

“The chute’s been damaged. I’ve been trying to get food out for the past 10 minutes and nothing’s coming down.” Black leaned against the wall on her arm, sighing slowly and closing her eyes, looking more defeated than I’d ever seen her before. I swallowed the guilt that was rising in my stomach. I was doing them a favor, even if they’d never know it.

“So… I’m going to have to get us back home faster, and we’ll be without food for about a day or so. Just wanted you all to know what was going on before I activated the hyperdrive.” Without waiting for any of us to respond, she swiftly turned and headed for navigation, and the rest of us sat down at the table. Red in particular looked miserable, holding his stomach.

“Really wish I hadn’t thrown out the stuff I didn’t eat last night…” I placed a hand on his shoulder and rubbed it gently, doing my best to offer him a smile.

“Well, at least we’ll be home pretty soon, right? And you-” I caught myself almost referring to humans as others and hoped they’d overlook it, “we, can survive this. We’re strong.” If Red had noticed my slip up, he didn’t care, and giving me a smile in return, placed his hand on mine.

“Thanks, Mint.”

—

Although the trip in hyperdrive was only a day and a half, the wait was agonizingly long for me. My thoughts were racing constantly, hoping that what I’d done was enough to ground the ship, but it was to my dismay that upon arriving that we were mandated to remain on board while a full inspection was carried out. Too afraid to even attempt sabotaging, I fiddled with my hands and watched as the chute was repaired in front of our group. Black was being questioned by an officer, then led him to the security room to show him the footage from the night the dispenser broke. Another officer came in to question us on the death of our crewmate, and I only barely managed to stumble my way through my interview, which was apparently convincing enough because the inspectors left and the new additions to the crew began to board.

First to enter was Orange, a dark brown-haired woman with faint freckles on her kind-looking face, followed by Lime, who I watched bid farewell to his family before entering. I felt my stomach twist itself into knots once again. It would be impossible to justify killing any of these new members, and with the ship almost restocked and ready for take off, I contemplated just running off the ship and far, far away from everyone and everything. I even sat forward, on the fence about it but committing more and more… until the final new white-suited crew member boarded and signaled for the dock crew to close the door.

And this time, I felt all the heat drain my body.

The man stopped as he finished boarding and stared at me, making sharp eye contact, and I watched as his mouth contorted itself into a devilish grin. Something wasn’t right. I stared into his eyes deeper, unable to look away, and for a moment, I saw a flicker of something unnatural, before he looked away and walked over to the rest of the new crewmates, enthusiastically shaking their hands and being chummy.

Red had watched the entire encounter between us, and when he saw my eyes slowly lower down and my face pale, he nudged me with his shoulder.

“Does he remind you of Blue?”

My eyes widened and I looked up at Red, not really giving him a clear answer with my body language.

“I… I’m not sure. But I don’t trust him.” I glanced over at the crowd of people, seeing Yellow now joining the fray. White kept up his friendly tone with the crewmates, but kept stealing glances at me, and I felt myself bristle. Almost instinctively, I added, “Don’t be alone with him, Red.” The man beside me laughed softly.

“Me? I’m more worried about you! But don’t worry, I know where you’re coming from.” Red stood to join the others, patting my back as he went.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was about White that seemed off, but it felt like Red wasn’t totally taking my advice seriously, which bothered me. He didn’t know that I was an imposter, so I really couldn’t fault him for not knowing how important my warning was, but still, if anything happened to him…

_So what? Why do you care what happens to him?_

I bit my lip and stood up slowly.

_He’s just one of billions of humans, and if you can’t stop the ship, then you have to kill everyone on board. Don’t form attachments._

I couldn’t even give _myself_ advice anymore, it seemed, because when I stared at Red as I walked over, I felt the burning desire inside of me to keep him _safe_ , which couldn’t have been more counter-productive to my mission if I tried. If he wanted to keep me safe then fine, all the more power to him to live in some kind of fantasy, but how was what I wanted not the exact same thing, a fantasy?

That seemed to be where my mind went often, a place where no one had to die and Red could be safe from harm. It just continued to trouble me that I felt this way at all. Not wanting to kill something as sapient as myself was a perfectly understandable sentiment, but everything involving Red on top of that was what kept me up at night. Why should I ever feel protective of a _human_?

Red introduced me to the three new crewmates, and I shyly introduced myself. Offering a handshake to Lime and Orange, I tried to ignore White’s piercing gaze as I shook his hand last.

“Glad to meet you, _Mint._ ” My fight or flight reflex nearly kicked in as I heard him say my name. His grip was firm on my hand and I tried to pull away sooner, but he held it for an extra moment in order to get me to look at him again.

And then his pupils contracted, for only a second, into slits.

“Looking forward to working with you.”

I staggered backwards, trying not to bump into Yellow as I walked, and Red reached out to support me.

“Woah, Mint, you okay?”

_I knew it._

Closing my eyes for a second, I tilted my head up and puffed out my chest, standing up straight, and gave White a seething smile as I reopened my eyes.

“Nice to meet you too.”

—

The hours passed since take off, and I wandered into electrical to make sure everything was still in ship shape. As I opened the panel to check the wiring, I heard the door shut and the lock _click_ , and I immediately glanced down to the vent, eyes narrowing. A low chuckle rose up from the duct and I closed the panel, crossing my arms uneasily.

“I know you’re in there, White.”

The other man pushed open the vent and climbed out, kicking it shut and standing up tall beside me. He was several inches taller than me, though at my full size I would easily be a head taller than him, so I tried not to feel too intimidated. Still, he placed a hand on the electrical box and the other on his hip and leaned over towards me.

“So, only one, huh? Pretty pathetic if you ask me.” I wanted to smack the smirk off his face, but I instead took a small step back. “Looks like you need my help.”

My initial response was a snort.

“I don’t need any help from you, alright? In fact, why don’t you just eject yourself using one of the escape pods right now and go home?” I turned to walk away from him but he whipped around me and slammed his other hand onto the box, effectively pinning me to it.

“You might want to rethink that attitude, _Mint_ , because if you’re not going to kill these pathetic creatures, then I don’t need _your_ help either.” We stared each other in the eyes, hate being passed in equal amounts between us, but when I expected him to let me go, his eyes instead softened, and he moved a hand to my neck. Memories of Blue flooded me, and I very nearly shifted out of panic. What I didn’t expect him to do was undo my helmet and pull it off, followed by his own. Leaning in close to me, he tilted his head back a bit and a mouth from under his chin began to open, with a pink tongue slithering out and caressing my jaw. I tried to push away from him.

“What the fuck’s your problem!? I’m not your food, so keep that shit away from me!” Moving to grab my helmet from the floor, I was pushed back to the box again and, once more, White got close to my face.

“We’re going to have a rather _long_ trip ahead of us, and I do get _bored_ when I can’t kill.” I felt his warm breath on my neck and I grimaced, knowing _exactly_ where this was going, as well as what kind of creature he was.

“Why me though? Can’t you just… I don’t know, seduce one of the crew and do stuff with them?” I felt sick for even suggesting it, but I really wasn’t on board with what White was implying.

“Nah, they seem to break too easily. But you,” the tongue snaked out again and brushed my throat, “I bet you could handle it.” Finally White released me, and leaning back against the wall across from me, folded his arms and watched me grab my helmet.

“Come on, it could be a mutual arrangement. We both get to fully enjoy ourselves because we both know what we are, and... Red won’t die.”

Just when I was about to head out, I heard him mention Red, and I very nearly tackled him to the ground.

“Oh yeah?” My tone of voice was challenging, and I met his eyes again.

“Yep. So long as you meet me here at 0000 hours tonight, then I won’t touch your friend.”

Every cell in my body was _screaming_ to kill him. He _knew_ I was hesitating to kill, and he’d _immediately_ picked up on my relationship with Red, and I’d be the biggest fucking idiot if I pretended like he wasn’t about to use that to his advantage. Killing him would be so easy, but everyone knew I’d gone to electrical, and I wasn’t about to pull the same “caught in the airlock” excuse twice. I was cornered, and I had to play my hand right if I wanted to get out.

“Fine. But if you start killing ANYONE before we’re into deep space, you have no ally.” I spat the words at him and forcefully unlocked the doors, heading out towards the lower engine.

White turned around the wall and grinned at me triumphantly as I left.

“So it’s a deal then!” A vicious laugh echoed around the room as I bit back more rage, preparing to do my last task before dinner.


	5. First Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter is rated E for sexual content, some of which is rough/dubious consent.
> 
> If you wish to skip the sexual content (since it starts from the beginning), the rest of the chapter continues at the phrase, "After taking a few minutes to clean up the area".

The entire first half of the night I spent sitting in bed, staring at my clock. I was hugging my legs tightly, nervously chewing my lip, until right around 2354, when I heard a very faint scuffling sound in the vents. My whole body shook as I tried to mentally prepare myself for what I was about to do. Never before in my life had I had intercourse with anyone else, and now my first time was going to be with some random alien who wanted to hijack my mission to satisfy his bloodlust.

All of it made me feel so sick.

I waited only a couple minutes before climbing up into the vent to meet White. The sooner I got this over with, the better. I almost turned around a few times and headed back to my room, but the fear of losing Red drove me to go through with this, and I swallowed my pride as I hopped out into electrical.

White was leaning against the wall from earlier, wearing nothing but his boxers. The lewd smile that formed on his face as he watched me enter the room made my stomach churn, and I backed up against the wall, holding my hands to my chest.

“Glad you made it.” I kept my eyes on his, watching him check me out as he strolled over to me. “Well all this clothing just won’t do...”

Placing his hands on either side of my tank top, he pulled it up and over my head, and once he had a clear view of my body, his grin grew wider, seemingly actually genuine at the sight of my almost naked body. One of his fingers traced the faint line where my second mouth was.

“There it is… I knew you’d be a freak just like me.” Before I had a chance to ask him what he meant by that, he tugged on his boxers and they fell to the floor, exposing a three-petaled sheath with two flaps on either side, as well as two mandible-like appendages extruding from his pelvis. It was very bug-like, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t scare me a little bit. But I knew he wasn’t prepared for my equipment.

Moving our bodies close together, he opened up all three of the mouths on his neck, which began to find their ways around my own neck and shoulders. The wet, slimy sensation made me cringe, while I shivered in his grip. Looking down, I noticed more mandible-like claws appearing vertically on his chest, and when they opened up, a bunch of tentacle tongues slithered out of the gape, licking me all over and trying to encourage me to expose my true form as well. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of getting to me THAT easily, and my second mouth opened up, teeth jutting outwards, causing him to retract from me.

“Oh, shit, little _bitey_ are we?” A dark chuckle left White and he gripped my hair, holding it back. The pain caused me to shift my eyes, leaving dark pits filled with small white light which stared back at him angrily. My second tongue lashed out at him, but his chest maw retracted, the claws on it threatening to clamp down on me.

“Asshole, just get it over with. Don’t play with me,” I growled. This only resulted in the grip on my hair being increased.

“I will get to you when I’m _good and ready_ , so don’t test me. It’s been almost a year since I’ve been able to enjoy _anyone_.” His free hand slid under my second mouth and slammed it up to close it, causing the teeth to hit the sensitive skin inside, and I winced, shuddering a bit. “Keep that attitude to yourself or I’ll start to take this by force.”

As if to drive his point home, White roughly pulled down my boxes, exposing… essentially nothing, to anyone who wasn’t me. The surprise was enough to make him step back, and raising an eyebrow, he pointed to my groin.

“Um, where is it?” His confusion almost made me laugh, but the frustration in his voice kept me quiet. If I could milk this as long as possible, I would.

“What if I told you… I didn’t have anything down there?” This time, I couldn’t restrain my smile. White clenched his teeth and grabbed my wrists, pinning me to the wall, and I laughed fully, my second mouth opening up to give his chest a little lick. His grip on my arms tightened to the point of pain, and his maw opened up again, this time wide enough to wrap around my sides partway, and the claws dug in, causing me to cry out. 

“You’ve got to have something! You can’t just magically make more of you!” His hand dove down to my groin and his newly formed claws gripped me, inadvertently pulling back the flap which contained my genitals. This caught us both off guard, and in his anger, his maw released me, while he threw me to the ground.

I coughed as I hit the floor, my second mouth slightly misaligned with the rest of me, causing my teeth to once again stab into my inner skin. Blood leaked out onto the floor and I tried to push myself up. Unfortunately, by the time I was on my all fours, White had dropped to the floor and pinned my legs under his own.

“You’re not going anywhere, you fuckin’ liar…” One of his hands shoved my upper body to the floor again, while the other tugged on the skin at my groin, and with a heavy sigh, I allowed the teeth to pull away from the pits they sat in, and the triangular flap of skin that was much like the bottom of my upper jaw, hung down below me.

This exposed two things, the spot my ovipositor sat in, and essentially my vagina, the top of which being where the former was attached. Seeing no point in resisting anymore, I relaxed my ovipositor and it began to slide out from me, dropping onto the floor unceremoniously, while my vagina opened up more. Now more than ever, I was glad I wasn’t in heat, or this bastard could have actually gotten me pregnant.

“Please, just get this over with.” My words were punctuated by a grunt as White leaned forward and shoved his hand on my head.

“Shut the fuck up. If you want this to go by faster, then don’t say a goddamn thing.” The mandible-like appendages on his hips hooked over my thighs, and I felt something slide out from his sheath to rub up against the base of my ovipositor. I had no idea what to expect this to feel like, so I closed my eyes and tried to think of Red. If there was anyone who I’d prefer to be where White was right now, it was Red, even though he’d probably recoil in horror at the sight. Still… I was doing this for him. That way he’d never have to wind up on the receiving end of the awful maw that had apparently opened up again, as I started feeling tongues along my backside.

I didn’t have a chance to dwindle any longer on the fear of what sex would be like, because White entered me abruptly, and I cried out, feeling a mix of pain and pleasure. The anxiety from the sudden physical intrusion caused me to seize up around him, and my back spines shot out, along with my claws. This pleased White, but being unable to slide back out, he pushed two fingers inside of me and pried me apart, which seared me from the inside. I cried out, this time my human voice mixing with my real one, and the sound came out more like a roaring animal.

“I said shut up, Mint!!” His hand went to my mouth and gripped it shut, just barely leaving enough room below my nostrils for me to breathe. Tears trickled onto the floor as I tried my best to get used to the burning sensation, and after taking a few deep breaths, I relaxed enough for him to pull his fingers out of me. And so he began to thrust in and out.

I moved my hands up to my face and covered my eyes, trying to think of _anything_ but what was happening to me. If only I could cover my ears so I wouldn’t have to hear his grunts and moans, if I could open my eyes and be back to that night with Red when we just held each other, if I could be beside him at _all_ …

White’s thrusts got rougher, and I thought I was going to split, but just as he was about to go harder, he released a long groan and gripped me tightly with his hip-mandibles, and I felt him spill deep inside of me. His body was shaking as he pulled out from me, and my vagina contracted immediately, my ovipositor following suit.

“Thank fuck…” White grumbled. When he finally released me, I collapsed on the ground, tucking my groin flap closed and curling up into a ball as my claws and spines retracted, my eyes returning to normal. White gave my side a rough rub and pat, then grabbed his boxers before standing.

“See? That wasn’t so bad. And next time, it’ll be even better.” Once he was dressed, he moved back over to the vent and waved me off.

“See you in the morning, Mint.”

The second I was alone, I began to sob. I didn’t even care if he was sitting in the vents listening to me, I couldn’t hold back for another moment. The entire experience had been a mortifying ordeal, and now I was on the hook for more, all so Red wouldn’t be killed. If it were anyone else, I don’t think I would have been able to stomach the arrangement, but from day one, Red was the one who was looking out for me, and he’d do the same in a heartbeat.

Although perhaps not, if he really knew.

Still, it was reason enough for me to put up with this, and who knew, maybe it _would_ get better, and less painful. This was my first time, so that definitely contributed. But a part of me suspected that things would probably only get worse.

After taking a few minutes to clean up the area, I climbed back down into the vents and went to my room. I straightened myself up at the sink before grabbing my ID and my suit, and leaving my room for Red’s. Scanning my ID, I bounced on my feet a bit until he opened up the door, and despite being partly asleep, a smile crossed his lips the moment he saw my face.

“Mint…”

I couldn’t even wait for him to finish speaking before I threw my arms around him in a hug, shutting my eyes as he closed the door. Red’s arms snaked around me and after a few moments, he pulled away to place my things at his desk, pulling me down into bed with him.

“You doin’ okay? It’s been a while since you interrupted my sleep like this.”

For once, I was truly lost for words. I hadn’t planned this far ahead, I just knew I wanted to be with him, to be comforted by him. But I couldn’t even honestly tell him why.

“No… I, I just…” Nothing was coming to me, and I sighed unhappily.

“Shh... it’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I’m here for you.”

My eyes fluttered open and I saw him looking at me tenderly, his hand sliding to my arm and giving it little strokes. Pressing my nose to his, I took a few deep breaths, closing my eyes again. I had so many thoughts swirling around in my head, and after having such an awful night, I just wanted to get a small piece of it figured out. I wanted to finally understand why I cared so much, and why he seemed to care so much for _me_. I needed to make sure that what I was doing for him was worth it.

“You… you mean a lot to me, Red. I keep thinking to myself… what would I do if something happened to you? And it... it just makes me so _upset_. I can’t bear the thought of it…”

Red pulled me into a tight hug, and I wrapped my leg up and over his, not wanting to let him go.

“I know exactly what you mean, Mint. There are nights I lie awake, terrified of all the ways I could lose you…” My eyes opened wide, and even in the dark I could see a faint blush fall across his cheeks, and I nuzzled him softly.

“Yeah, like could I live with myself without you?” I offered my feelings to him, hoping he felt similarly. The vague nod he gave me in return was accompanied by a kiss, which he held for longer than before, and when I went to open my mouth to speak again, he’d pushed in a little bit more with his tongue.

My legs instinctively curled tighter around Red’s, and he shifted his body to climb on top of me. Now with more leverage, his kisses deepened, and they began to trail down my neck. A part of me panicked, hoping he wouldn’t go too far down, but he seemed content to pepper my neck in soft pecks, trailing back up to my lips, where he hovered for a moment.

_“I love you, Mint.”_

The words sunk deep into my core. Having no prior experience with romantic love, I was hit by a brick wall as I realized that all of the confusing feelings I was having about Red had to do with _love_. I loved him, a human, in the face of all odds, and it mortified me.

I wanted to feel ashamed of myself, and yet, I just… couldn’t.

_“I love you too Red.”_

As our tongues twisted around each other, I felt myself melt into him, and all the pain and fear I had earlier seemed to vanish like smoke into the air, replaced by a comforting warmth. Tomorrow I could worry about the ramifications of all this.

But for now, it was just Red and I, immersed in a state of euphoria.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mint has really weird genitalia, since his species is hermaphroditic. I'll wind up talking about it more when sexual stuff comes up with him again, but I'll probably be glossing over future sex with White unless the scene has plot relevance. I just felt like this was a good introduction to some of Mint's weirdness with regard to his species, and why he's gonna have a fun time trying to navigate this with Red.


	6. Don't Lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M for violence and some vaguely sexual content at the end (nothing truly explicit, but things are definitely implied).
> 
> Starts after the line "White merely waved him off." until the end of the chapter.

One week passed, then another, then another, all following the same jarring, but consistent pattern. A few nights a week, I’d be abruptly woken up by White so he could take his sexual energy out on me, and then other nights I’d hear a soft tapping at my door when Red wanted to spend time with me. It was confusing and tiring to deal with, but it made both of them happy, and since neither of them could know about the other, I simply went along with it.

The lack of sleep was starting to take a toll on me, and I began napping randomly throughout the days. On more than one occasion, Black found me leaning against the wall in electrical, half asleep and drooling, and each time she brought me back to admin to chastise me.

“We need everyone working, this isn’t a cruise liner. Have you been getting to sleep early enough?”

“I’ve been trying, just been having trouble falling asleep I guess.”

“Go see Orange in medbay, ask her for sleeping pills. I’m going to let you off for the day early so you can catch up on rest, but I don’t want to see you falling asleep again or I’m going to change your task assignment and put in a recommendation that you transfer home in a few months when we return.”

“Right…”

Orange gave me a bottle of pills and sent me to my room, and I popped one immediately before collapsing in bed. I’d take the one just to make sure I got good rest, but I knew I could only afford to take the one, if I wanted to keep up the facade.

—

My nights with them had a funny way of mirroring each other. One night White would take me over to navigation and bend me over the controls, taunting me to change them as I desperately tried not to accidentally adjust anything, while Red would bend me over his desk to kiss me at different angles. I implored him to not go below my collar bone, since I never knew if I could keep my second mouth closed should he tickle it. On the contrary, White seemed eager to make me slip up. Bringing up how little I seemed to eat at dinner, pestering me by jabbing at my stomach, just anything to put my own safety at risk since he was bored not being able to kill anyone.

Unfortunately, I knew he wouldn’t wait forever.

Black had handed out the week’s assignments only a couple days ago, with me once again in electrical, while Red had the upper engine and White had reactor. Every time he was tasked with reactor (or anywhere near it), I couldn’t find a moment of peace, since at least twice now, he’d sabotaged it and watched as the entire crew sprinted for the hand scanners before the whole ship was destroyed in a nuclear meltdown.

After breakfast, we headed off to our tasks. I tailed Lime through storage, since he was working in the lower engine, and I split off into electrical. My preference was to start with the data download, which took several hours to complete, and working on calibrating the distributor in the meantime. I opened up the panel on the electrical box and was about to begin, when I heard Lime call out to me from outside the room.

“Hey, Mint? Could you come here a second?” The exasperation in his voice piqued my curiosity, and I rushed over after closing the box, where he waved me over to follow him back to the lower engine room.

“What’s up?” I raised an eyebrow at him and watched as he kneeled down and struggled to open the door for the engine’s control panel. He gave it a final tug before turning back around to face me, sighing.

“This damn door’s stuck. I went to find White to see if he could help me, but he must’ve run off to the bathroom. Figured you’d probably have about as much luck as me though,” he chuckled. Once he stepped back to let me try, I reached for the handle… and heard the door locks click shut.

And my blood immediately ran ice cold.

I quickly turned around to look at Lime, who was staring at me expectantly, and my eyes flitted over to the vent, where White was silently exiting. His chest cavity tore through his suit as the maw stretched open. When my eyes widened, Lime turned to see what had spooked me, but when he gazed upon the monstrous creature about to overtake him, he stumbled backwards, falling onto the floor beside me.

“W-White!?” The man couldn’t find any more words as his voice and mouth quivered. Meanwhile, I watched as White reverted back to his true form, possibly almost completely, though I wasn’t sure. His neck lengthened a bit as the three mouths along the underside opened up, each twisting into evil grins as their tongues slithered out in search of food, and mandibles like the ones on White’s hips sprung out of the sides of the mouth on his face, his eyes contracting into slits. Even more terrifying was his _skin_ which was turning into more of a greenish color, and I hurriedly backed away from the both of them.

Lime noticed me moving away and he grabbed for my leg, trying to yank himself to safety.

“M-Mint!! Help me!!” His tears spilled down the wrinkles on his face, and I froze, wishing I could help him, but knowing there was nothing I could do.

“Ha! Like he’d help you!” Claws began to stretch from White’s fingertips as they tore through his gloves and he hunched over, the multitude of tentacle tongues emerging from his chest maw now dripping saliva onto Lime’s legs. The older man had no time to question what White meant before the imposter started to tear up Lime’s suit with the claw-appendages on his chest. He desperately tried to kick him off, but in return, White thrusted his hand against the man’s throat, which pinned him against my legs.

“White, why now??” It was a silly question for me to ask. In all likelihood, White was simply hungry and bored, and he’d gone over a month without hurting anyone. While he hadn’t lasted as long as me, he had at least kept to his word and waited. I just didn’t want to see the peace end. My thoughts were interrupted when White snapped his fingers at me, having ignored my question.

“I’ll let you have some of him if you help me hold him down.” He waved at Lime’s arms, and I hesitated, staring down at the terrified man whose eyes now flickered with doubts about me.

I couldn’t afford to turn down the offer, not with my own hunger returning.

Mouthing an “I’m so sorry” to him, I pulled myself out from under him and reached to pin his arms down. Still, I didn’t want to make his last moments worse by transforming, so I used all my strength to hold him still and I closed my eyes, unwilling to watch him die.

Hearing Lime’s screams as he was torn apart by White was infinitely worse than hearing Blue’s death at my own hands. I squeezed his arms tightly as I tried to think about anything else, and eventually the struggling stopped, and I looked up at what was left of him. His chest and stomach were torn wide open, while White’s mouth and lower maw were completely covered in blood. A few specks had landed on me, so I quickly shed my suit in the corner, including my shirt, and crawled down onto the floor.

“You’d better eat quickly, Black might be making the rounds soon.” Glancing up at him, I noticed a sly grin on his face. He could dip into the vent at a moment’s notice and abandon me with all the incriminating evidence, which he likely very much intended to do if he had to, and I hissed at him.

“Don’t even think about leaving me. You started this mess, so you figure out how we’re going to stage this while I eat.” My eyes narrowed at him as my second mouth opened, and I began to chew up what remained of Lime. It seemed White had an idea, and after he cleaned himself off, started poking around near the engine itself.

The low rumble emanating from the machinery made it difficult to hear if anyone was approaching. Even though the doors were closed, finding them that way and then finding Lime dead would be extremely suspicious, and once again, I would be one of the top suspects. I did what I could do to rush through my meal, leaving enough that we could work with to make a convincing excuse for why our crewmate died. White climbed on top of the engine and reached for the toolbelt on the lower half of his suit, pulling out a bolt loosener, and he began removing the bolts securing one of the engine panels, exposing a row of fast-moving pistons. As I licked myself clean, he grabbed Lime’s corpse off the floor, now an unrecognizable mess aside from the color of his suit, and shoved it into the engine.

Immediately the machinery reacted to the obstruction and more steam hissed out from the small vents. I fell backwards, feeling the ship notably decelerate, and my eyes widened as White leaped off the engine toward the vent.

“You’ve gotta report it. I’m going to grab a fresh suit and get myself an alibi. I suggest you figure one out too. Someone will be here shortly.” He darted into the ventilation system before I could even respond, and I looked down at the mess on the floor, panicking. The doors were still locked but I had maybe a minute to clean up and put my suit back on.

I wasted no time cleaning up the blood and hopped into my suit, hands shaking violently as I heard the sound of rapid footsteps in the hallways. Forcibly unlocking and opening the doors as soon as I could, I sprinted out towards electrical again and ran into Orange and Black, who pushed past me into the lower engine room. Orange immediately turned away and gagged upon seeing the gory scene on the top of the engine, while Black stared up at it for a moment, before darting off to the side and slamming her hand on the engine shutdown button.

“MINT!” I hurriedly turned around to face her, my breath quivering as her stare bore down into me. “What the HELL happened!?”

“I-I, I, w-” I continued to stammer, and Orange reached out a hand to rub my shoulder, still averting her gaze from the inside of the room. Black seemed about to chew me out when Red and White ran in from the other hallway, with Red’s face losing color as he saw Lime’s body. White, however, faked a grimace and looked over at me.

“Did Mint find this?” His direct accusation of me gave me a moment of clarity, and my eyes flickered for just a moment in anger. Black stared back at me and raised her voice again.

“I’m not going to ask you a third time, Mint, what happened!?” My brain was overstimulated, and I tried to give them something that wouldn’t be incriminating.

“I-I heard him! He sounded in pain! I… I ran over and was about to get help, b-but the doors closed!” I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself, trying not to stare down White. Black gritted her teeth and pointed at Orange.

“Go find Yellow and tell her to check on the door wiring, make sure there’s nothing funky going on with it.” Orange nodded and headed off down the hall, while our captain refocused on the engine. “Why was he even up there in the first place? No one needs to get into the engine while it’s on, he should have come to me and asked for permission to shut it off. He _knew_ this.” Her eyes narrowed and she looked down at me.

“Is there something you’re not telling me Mint?”

I caught a glimpse of Red behind White and I felt my chest burn. There was no way I was taking the fall for this, at least, not alone.

“White.” It was the only thing I added at first. Black whipped her head around to look at the other two men and I watched White’s face contort into a snarl as he glanced at me. “He should have heard Lime before me, but he was nowhere to be found when I showed up.”

It seemed as though White’s alibi was now completely shattered, and his face went red for a moment as he came up with a new excuse.

“I was working on starting the reactor, and with the doors apparently closed, I never heard him. If anything, Mint should DEFINITELY have not heard anything, and yet, here he is.” The smugness returned to his face, and I almost snarled at him, using every bit of my strength to not rip open my gloves with my claws.

“I came over when the ship suddenly slowed down, and the doors closed behind me. If it wasn’t because of the lower engine, I was going to go check in with Red. I heard him when I got closer to the room.” Sweat rolled down the inside of my suit and I took a few deep breaths, hoping I had played my hand right.

Black didn’t have an answer for either of us. Instead, she stood for a moment, eyes closed and thinking.

“Get him down from there and eject his remains, then the both of you get the engine cleaned and running again. Meet me in admin once you’re done.” Waving off Red, she left for the hallway towards electrical and once again, it was just White and I alone.

“You piece of shit.” He muttered to me. The doors closed once Black was well into storage, and White swiftly shoved me against the wall.

“W-what? What the fuck did you think I was going to say? She was accusing ME of lying! I’m not going to take the fall for YOUR kills, asshole!” My teeth began to transform and I hissed, my eyes turning black. I didn’t want to fight him, especially not right now, but I would have loved to tear out his throat. White merely gave me another rough shove and hopped up onto the engine to pull out the mess he left earlier.

“Just shut up and help me fix this. At least the little bit of blood left on your suit won’t seem so suspicious now.”

I glanced down at my gloves and chest and saw the earlier speckles still there, and my gut sank down into my feet. Black hadn’t seemed to notice, or at least, I hoped she didn’t, but it was still a massive oversight that could have cost me my life. And we still had to go to admin afterwards.

When I bent down to open the door that had been giving Lime grief, I found I only had to lightly tug it for it to open up, and the guilt of playing a part in his death crept back into my body. Looking up at White, I saw he was leaning into the engine to clean it, and I thought about how easy it would be to start up the engine now and turn him into paste, but then I’d definitely be ejected.

It took us about half an hour to get the engine back up and running again, and together we silently walked to admin, unsure of what Black was going to say. When we entered, she was monitoring the ship map, which flickered with two additional lights as we stepped into the room. Black turned to face us, taking her helmet off.

“So, what _really_ happened with Lime? Because it feels like the two of you can’t seem to make up your minds about it.” Her arms were folded over her puffed out chest, and she glanced between the two of us. I could hear White sigh, but I didn’t look over at him, and instead I pulled off my own helmet and looked up into my captain’s eyes.

“I really didn’t hear anything until I got closer. I only was over there because of the ship slowing down. I swear by it.” I hated being in this situation again, lying to Black’s face about a crewmate death I absolutely played a part in. Still my answer seemed to satisfy her, and she turned to look at White.

“And what about you? You were closer to the lower engine, and even if you couldn’t hear him, you should have been the first one there when the ship decelerated.” I appreciated how, despite being smaller than him and arguably younger, Black’s piercing stare seemed to make even him nervous, but perhaps that was simply because he had to explain himself on the fly. But then, it seemed the fear dissipated, and he was back to his usual, flippant self.

“With all due respect, _captain_ , have you started the reactor yourself before?” Both Black and I’s eyes widened, and I turned to look at him.

_Seriously!?_

“Because it takes a lot of focus, and honestly, I figured someone else would check the engines, whether it was Red or Lime. I didn’t want to have to restart the task. So,” White puffed his chest out and stretched his arms behind him, “if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to head back to the reactor so I can finish the task, and maybe try to put the day’s awful events behind me.”

He gave her the most polite nod he could manage and left the room, leaving me and the flabbergasted Black alone. She opened her mouth to speak but instead said nothing, and I decided that would be the best time to make my exit.

“I’ll, um… I’ll be in electrical.” Tugging my helmet back on, I quickly darted out of admin and into the hallway, hoping that the rest of the day would be uneventful.

—

Later that night around 2238, I escaped to the bathroom to shower. I hadn’t been able to properly clean myself off after eating earlier, and the tacky feeling of blood and sweat stuck to my skin was driving me insane. The bathroom was empty, and I felt relief wash over me… which lasted for only a minute or so once the door opened and Red entered. After a day like today, I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts, but of course I wouldn’t push Red away.

He was also wearing a towel and a robe, clearly aiming to shower, and I knew I couldn’t get away with going back to my room; all I could do was pray that I could rinse off some of the blood near my stomach before he saw me. Closing myself into a stall after removing my robe, I hung up my towel on the hook outside the door.

“Hey, Mint.” He pulled off his robe and set it over by the sink, accompanying me in the next over shower. “I wanted to check in with you after, well, earlier.” I could tell he was watching me closely and my cheeks turned red as I quickly wiped the blood off in the shower.

_Please don’t try to look in on my stall…_

“I’m doing fine, I promise. Just… wanted to wash off the filth of today and forget about it tomorrow.” Squirting soap into my hand, I turned away from him, hoping he’d start washing instead of looking at me. As I hoped, he respected my privacy and turned away.

“That’s good, I just… got reminded of Blue and how shaken up you were that day. Didn’t want a repeat of that.” I tilted my head and glanced back at Red, watching him soap up his shoulders. I hadn’t really gotten a full look at him shirtless before, but considering he was being polite to me, I decided I would be to him as well and averted my gaze.

“This was different, guess I’m just more used to this kind of thing now.” I punctuated the sentence with a chuckle. “For better or worse.” He only sighed.

“Still, I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with it.”

The following silence hung in the air uncomfortably, and I realized that Red was just trying to look out for me, as always. I’d honestly forgotten about it, since I was spending so much time looking out for _him_.

“Hey,” I murmured to him, putting my hand at the top of the stall and offering him to take it. When he turned to look at me, I saw the warm smile return to his face and he interlaced his fingers with mine, leaning forward to give me a soft kiss. We leaned in for another, but were interrupted by the bathroom door opening, and I quickly yanked my hand away, hoping that he was assuming I was just nervous about being open about our relationship.

White walked in wearing only a towel, but not a single aspect of his appearance implied he was anything other than human. Spying us in the showers already, he narrowed his eyes a bit and watched us closely as he entered the third shower stall, hanging up his towel as he cleared his throat.

“So, you two, here for a late night shower?” His voice felt louder than it needed to be at this time of night, and I shrunk back into the stall. Red was foolishly unphased by White’s prying and decided to make conversation with him instead.

“Yeah, didn’t get around to it sooner. You doin’ okay though? After earlier? I know it can’t be easy seeing a crewmate die like that. I’ve been there before.” I felt my stomach churn as Red spilled honest feelings of care and worry onto White. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t deserve that kind of compassion, but I couldn’t without implicating myself, so I stayed quiet. Hearing White’s melodramatic response tempted me, though.

“I’ve been trying not to think about it, it was just so _awful_ to see him stuck in there, and then having to clean it up. My only wish was that I could have been there sooner to help him…” White sighed unhappily, forcing a shuddered breath out, and Red offered him a supportive smile.

“It happens, bud. Hopefully we won’t have any other accidents for the rest of the trip.” I stifled an exasperated sigh as I prepared to exit the shower, but when I glanced over at White, I found him staring me down and I hesitated. Red meanwhile was turning off the water and toweling off, wrapping it around himself as he stepped out.

“So, uh, guess I’ll see you guys later?” He paused when he looked at me, and my heart panged when I realized he’d wanted more time alone with me, but I knew White was going to take priority here, and I silently pleaded for Red to understand that I _really_ wanted to go with him.

“Yep… G’nite.” It was the only thing I had to say as I grabbed more soap, hoping the sound would convince Red I just needed more time to bathe. White merely waved him off.

“So, Red, seems like you like him.” He wasted no time in exiting his shower stall and entering mine, pushing me back against the wall as the stream of water rained down on his back. I grimaced, watching the pincers on his hips stretching forward for me as the claws on his chest slowly reformed and wriggled around in my direction.

“We’re just friends, okay?” It was a blatant lie, but the longer I could go without admitting to my relationship, the better it was for Red.

“Uh-huh, sure.” His right hand slipped down between my legs to roll the flap back, and I closed my eyes, letting my head droop down.

“Just get this over with already, I’m tired and I already had to lie for both of us today.” White snarled a bit and roughly flipped me over to face the wall. His member was already out and rubbing against my ass, and I did my best to focus on the sound of the water instead.

“Right, about that,” he wrapped his hands around the side of my neck and started shifting his claws back, pressing the sharp edges to my throat and digging in, “Don’t EVER implicate me in your lies again. Find a better explanation or take the fall, or I _promise_ you I will gut you in your sleep.” I shuddered, shaking under his grasp.

“Do you understand?”

Nodding feverishly, I gritted my teeth and exhaled deeply as he removed his hand, but my relief was short lived as he spread my legs and slid both hands to my hips.

“Good. Now, let’s put some better memories over today’s bad ones.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this took a while. My first five chapters came out in six days and then the sixth came out 16 days after the fifth, so I felt a pressure to update sooner rather than later. I've got the events of the next several chapters planned out, it's just gonna be a matter of actually writing them. Things frequently wind up longer than I think they'll be, and I've been trying to add some padding around scenes so things don't just rapid-fire bounce from one thing to the next, which definitely helps the flow, but does cause me to take longer to get these chapters out to y'all, haha.
> 
> Can't say when the next chapter will come out, but I'm aiming for sometime this week. Thanks for reading so far, as always!/


	7. Used

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated E for sexual content throughout.

Not a day later, a familiar burning sensation bubbled up in my loins, working its way up to my chest. For all my time worrying about making my mission as short as possible, I’d completely forgotten about my bi-yearly heat cycle, and it was almost unbearable to deal with. I was forced to stuff my pants with hand towels to soak up the excess wetness leaking from me, which resulted in me walking around like I’d dropped a load in my pants.

Anytime I was around Red, I’d feel a strong pull to him, and I recognized it as the overwhelming urge to mate. But I couldn’t… not with him. I only had so many hand towels, and eventually I’d have to deal with it. Even jerking off didn’t seem to help.

Later that night, I was preparing to head to Red’s room, but an unexpected knock at my door caused me to quickly re-stuff my pants and check to see who it was.

“Hey Mint.” Red was leaning on the door frame, giving me a half-lidded gaze with a sly smile on his lips. My face had turned pink, and I opened the door for him to enter.

“O-Oh, Red! I was, um, I was getting ready to go to your room.” Closing the door, I turned around and watched him lie back on my bed, arms behind his head. “Why’d you come visit me?”

“Change of scenery, I guess.” He shrugged his shoulders and pulled off his shirt, motioning with his head for me to join him on the bed, which I readily did. One of his hands reached down to stroke my arm. “Can’t a guy want to surprise his boyfriend?”

Hearing him explicitly refer to me as his partner made me purr happily, and I hiked a leg up onto the bed, letting it rest against his. To my surprise, his other hand slowly slid down my chest. The sensation nearly made my second mouth open up, but my surprise turned to panic as soon as I noticed his hand moving towards my groin, and I quickly seized his wrist.

“Please, don’t. I’m just not… I’m not ready for that yet.” Looking into Red’s eyes, I could see a flicker of disappointment, but I knew he wouldn’t push me if I wasn’t up for it. He’d been respectful of me so far, and that wasn’t going to change. Instead, he pulled me up the bed towards his head so he could kiss me, and I almost completely relaxed myself on top of him, feeling like I was going to melt onto his chest.

That was when a thought struck me.

“Y-you know? I know I’m not ready for that but…” Pulling away from his lips, I let my own hand drift downward, the palm rubbing on the outside of his pants which were already tightening. His whole body jerked slightly, not expecting _me_ to be the one who was forward.

“Oh yeah?” Red sat up to give me a quick peck on the lips before pulling his pants and underwear down, exposing his growing erection. It was the first time I’d really gotten to see any genitalia that wasn’t my own, since White never kept me facing him long enough to do so, and Red and I hadn’t gotten to that point yet. The sight was nice, but I had to contain my ovipositor which was trying to poke out from my groin and slide into my pant leg. The more Red’s attention wasn’t on me, the better.

Moving down his body, I took hold of his cock and stroked it gently, lifting it back to inspect him a bit. He had no vagina, but I’d already been made aware of the weird split in human sexes vs the lack of one in my own species. External testes were still weird to me though, since as far as I could tell, White’s were internal, like mine. I could see Red looking down at me curiously, and I realized I’d been staring a little too long.

“You approve?” The joking tone in his voice made me blush again.

“Yes, yes I do.” Smiling at him, I moved my mouth to the tip of his cock and gave it an inquisitive flick. Enjoying the softness of it, I pressed more of the skin to my lips and slid my tongue along the slit at the top, watching as he bit his lip and leaned his head back. It had to have been quite some time since he had any intercourse, since I knew he wasn’t going to anyone else while dating me. As far as I knew, the only other people who were semi-involved were Black and Yellow, but it was unofficial; they simply craved physical intimacy and weren’t above seeking it with each other, but it never blossomed into anything official, at least, that I could see.

Given the lack of sexual contact, I assumed he wouldn’t last long. Sliding him into my mouth, I closed my eyes and worked up and down his shaft, admittedly shifting my tongue back just a little bit to wrap it around him. Red didn’t even notice, he had succumbed to the ecstasy and was quietly moaning. One of his hands stroked my hair and I purred again, pushing him in a little deeper than I had been.

There were many disadvantages to not having a proper throat, but this turned out to be an advantage, since I didn’t have the gag reflex another human might. This certainly surprised him, and he glanced down at me, surprised but not the least bit upset that I was taking his full length easily, before dropping his head back down onto the pillow and pressing down on me to push himself in further.

“F-fuck, Mint…” His profane remark spurred me on, and one of my hands moved up to massage his balls, hoping he’d enjoy that as well. The sudden groan and extra pressure he put on me seemed indicative of pleasure, so I continued. Red’s breath quickened, and I moved faster, somewhat with the movements he was mimicking with his hands on my head. Had he known I was an imposter, I might have revealed my antlers so he could grab on.

Groaning loudly, he came hard into my mouth, jet after jet of sticky fluid splattering my makeshift throat. It was too deep for me to spit it up, so while he rode out his orgasm, I summoned all my energy to connect my throat to my second mouth.

“W-wow… You’re… huh…” Red chuckled gently and stroked my cheek, while I pulled away and sat up, allowing the mess to drip down inside of me. “I have no clue how you did that, but… let’s just say I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth, yeah?”

“Aw, well, thank you.” My face went red and I let my hair fall down. Once again, Red pulled me up on top of him.

“No, thank _you_ , Mint.” He gave my nose a nuzzle and my lips a delicate kiss. It made me want to stay here with him, but by now the rags in my pants were _soaked_ , and my ovipositor was going to form a third leg on me soon enough. And I had to shoo my boyfriend from my room.

“H-hey… um, I hate to do this, but…” I stalled as I thought of an excuse, “I just remembered some paperwork I needed to get done for Black, so I need some time alone.” The disappointment from Red was palpable.

“Oh… alright. Is everything okay?” He still didn’t move to leave my bed.

“Yep, everything’s fine, I just promised her I’d get it taken care of, and I almost slept on it.” I gave him a kiss to the forehead and sat up. “I’ll come to your room after I’m done, if that’s okay?” Red thought for a moment before giving my arm a squeeze, offering me a smile.

“Sounds good.” Now feeling motivated to hurry up and leave, he slid off my bed, pulling up his pants as he exited my room.

The problem I was having wasn’t going to go away with just masturbation. I knew of only one solution, as much as it grossed me out to my core. But there was just simply no way I could continue dealing with this while also hiding my true identity.

Stripping down to just my boxers, I pulled myself up into the vent and made my way over to White’s room, trying to suppress the guilty feelings of infidelity that were rising up. There was no way I could explain myself to Red if he ever found out I sought out White, and I knew I’d have to take this to my grave. Pushing open his room’s vent with my foot, I dropped down in, and I was greeted with the rather ordinary sight of White reclining on his bed while reading one of Lime’s books.

“Well well, Mint.” He closed the book without marking his spot and placed it on his nightstand. “This is a first, isn’t it? You’ve never come to me for anything before.” The grin that formed on his lips almost made me head back up into the vent, but my ovipositor sliding out from my underwear against my leg meant I couldn’t. The sight made him smirk.

“I see now, you’re in heat, aren’t you?” Hearing him say it so directly triggered me to grimace.

“Yeah, I am. So… can we get this over with?” I refused to tell him I actually needed him to impregnate me, since it wasn’t like anything we’d make would survive anyway, but it seemed it didn’t matter. White hopped up from his bed and strolled over to me, reaching down to grab my ovipositor. Massaging it with his thumb, he used his other hand to caress my chin, while I moaned softly, my eyelids fluttering.

“You like that, don’t you Mint?” His head leaned in closer to my ear and he murmured to me, “Then get naked.”

I pulled off my underwear in a fast hurry, fluids leaking down my legs as I started to push him backwards. To my surprise, he didn’t move, nor even grab my ovipositor again. Instead, he sat back down on his bed, leaning back on his hands and staring at my exposed body. When I stepped forward, he put his hand up.

“No, you get to wait. I think maybe we should _get to know each other_ first.”

Normally I would have held myself back, but in this desperate of a situation, I reached for him and tried to throttle him, my eyes shifting to black. The moment my hands wrapped around his throat, one of the mouths on his neck bit down on me.

“You, you asshole!” I spat the words at him and shook out my hand, my ovipositor twitching around desperately. Of _course_ he’d pull something like this. He’d never allow me to have the advantage in any situation.

“Calm down, Mint. You’ll get yours. But since we’re gonna be spending some time together, I figured we ought to talk about ourselves, and not like the fake stories we told everyone else.” As much as I wanted to pace around the room, I instead decided to sit down and leak fluid all over his floor. I’d make it his problem too if he was going to be an ass.

“Alright then, what do you want to know?” Tossing my hands up, I tried to avoid stroking myself. White took his time to ponder what was likely a question he already had at the forefront of his brain, and I bounced my legs anxiously.

“How’d you wind up on this mission? Given your… enthusiasm for it, I get the impression you didn’t wanna do it.” Sliding his leg up onto the bed, he watched me think of my response, eyes trained on my groin flap, which was now tapping the metal floor with its teeth as it twitched.

“It was kind of… a lottery? All adults were entered, and my number was one that came up. I begged them not to make me go, but it really wasn’t up to me. I got shipped out the day after I found out.” Sighing, I started rapping my fingers on the floor, my claws shifting out. “What else do you want to know?” White looked taken aback.

“So selfish! Don’t you want to know anything about me?” Obviously he knew I didn’t, so he carried on.

“On my planet, we volunteered. It was seen as an honorable mission, going out to prevent humans from colonizing all corners of the universe. Someone like _you_ would be a laughing stock among my kind.”

Just because I disliked violence against humans didn’t mean I was a softie. Sure, Red was admittedly a soft spot for me, but I failed to mention that the reason we had a raffle was _because_ so many of my species wanted to volunteer. Having survived to adulthood was proof I could handle myself, despite how I acted on this mission. Somehow though, I felt that it was in my best interest to let White believe that I was a weakling. Instead, I decided to steer the conversation back to where I wanted it to go.

“How many babies do your species typically have per pairing?” Tilting my head, I tried to ignore my ovipositor twitching again. White rolled his eyes, but the trace of a smile was present on his lips.

“One or two. It’s one of the few things we have in common with humans. Why, how many do you have?” I chuckled and slid forward on the floor, leaving a wet trail behind me.

“Five? Six? There are rarely clutches larger, but it happens-” Before I could continue, White put his hand up.

“Wait, wait, clutches? Like, eggs?” There was a bit of a grimace on his face, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Did you think this was just a large dick?” I lifted my ovipositor off the floor a bit before letting it drop back down with a flat _plap_. Even the brief contact with it made me slightly shudder, and White smiled, knowing how desperate I was for it to be touched. It seemed as though he disregarded my answer and instead stood up to grab the tie from his robe, pulling it off and kneeling down in front of me. Wrapping the tie around my midsection, effectively pinning my second mouth to me, he pushed me back down onto the floor.

“Is that right? Huh, well, learn somethin’ new everyday.” Climbing on top of me, White moved his head down to mine, then down to my neck where he planted a kiss, and I recoiled, pushing him off of me.

“What the _fuck_!? I didn’t say you could kiss me!” White merely sat back on my legs and crossed his arms.

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you then. I’ve seen what you do with Red, seems like the two of you get up to some _fun_ times, and I wanted to join in.” Wiping his lip with his thumb, he smirked at me. “Gotta say, I see why you two do it. It’s _nice_.”

With that, he stood up and climbed back onto his bed, grabbing the book from earlier and flipping to a random page. I stared up at him, pushing myself off the floor.

“Wait, you’re not going to fuck me?” My heart raced and I stood up, moving over to him and grabbing the book out of his hands, tossing it aside.

“I was reading that-” he tried to say, before I interjected.

“No you fucking weren’t.” I hopped onto the bed and my eyes turned black again, my antlers now sprouting from my head. The sight made White grin, and he reclined back, watching me straddle him as my hands gripped his shirt. “Quit playing these games with me. You want to kiss me? Fine, kiss me all you want. Just please, _FUCK ME_.”

The laughter that came from White only made me grip him more, but in one quick movement, he whipped me around so he was on top of me. All four of his mouths opened up and began to lick me, with the mouth on his head kissing my cheek and then my neck. His chest maw opened up now too, and the tentacles tongues within slithered out to lick over every inch of my torso, which made my second mouth groan unhappily under the tie. Eventually, he found his way further down my body, and the tentacles snaked their way into my vagina, making me gasp.

“W-White-!” Another rush of fluid leaked out from me and coated the sheets, as well as his legs, and I shuddered. More tentacles wrapped around my ovipositor, twisting it around with some even entering the tip, and I shrieked, only to have White slam his hand down on my mouth.

“You can’t be this loud, I don’t want Black knocking on my door, alright?” Still, some of the tentacles continued to play with me, and I whined, hating how much I was _enjoying_ this. White’s cock had slipped out from its sheath and was getting coated in my wetness. For the first (and hopefully last) time, I found myself wanting him to enter me already, and I pushed my hips against him to entice him to do so.

But before I could get what I wanted, he wanted one more thing. Leaning down to my face, he planted a somewhat rough kiss on my lips, his tongue wrapping around mine, which I quickly shifted back to its original length and shoved back into his mouth. His mouth pincers sprung out and caressed my cheek, while he pressed his teeth into my tongue. Upon pulling away, he chuckled darkly.

“Easy, Mint. Bet you’d hate to lose that thing.” Our lips met again and I tried to picture Red instead of him, to limited success. After another minute or so of uncomfortable kissing, he eventually hooked the mandibles at his hips over my legs and lined up his cock with the base of my ovipositor, and with one last lewd smile, he pushed into me.

It was the first time the sensation had ever been welcomed, and I tightened up around him, but not like I did the first night we had sex. This time he groaned happily, letting his member twitch around inside of me. The feeling caused more wetness to coat him, and he released a contented sigh, which I’d never heard from him before. Seemed this was an overall better experience for the both of us, but again, I didn’t _want_ it to be. I wanted _Red_ , but if I had to have White help me, then I had to do this.

Our sex was brief, with the newfound pleasure, and it took very little time for White to orgasm deep inside of me, while I swallowed back the lump in my throat, realizing what came next. I hurried out of White’s room after saying goodnight and rushed to the shower, washing myself off as I thought about excuses for why I was so late getting to Red’s room, while trying not to smell like White. Well, perhaps worrying about smelling like him wasn’t really an issue, since humans didn’t have the same scent-detecting abilities I did, but I still wanted to wash off all the guilt I had from not only pursuing White, but _enjoying_ it too. By the end of my shower, I didn’t feel much better.

—

A couple weeks passed, mostly uneventfully, with the sex with White returning to how normally unpleasant it was, and I knew that could only mean that our coupling had been successful. Fortunately it seemed as though he didn’t think too much about it, and hadn’t asked any questions about me feeling better.

Red hadn’t noticed anything either, of course, but he still kept wanting to offer me some kind of sexual pleasure in return, which I consistently turned down. This presented a new fear, that perhaps this was the furthest we’d get in our relationship before he’d be too tired of me not reciprocating sexually. Still, nothing seemed amiss, so I tried not to worry.

I was working in the reactor one day when I felt a grumble in my lower torso, as well as a sudden sharp pain, and I collapsed to my knees, holding my stomach.

“F-fuck-! Not now!” When I tried to stand, the pain returned, and I fell back down onto the floor. Whether I wanted them to or not, the eggs were coming. There was no way I could make it to the stairs, so my only option was through the vents, and I pushed my way to my feet yet again, leaning against the wall as I made my way to security. Fortunately for me, Black was in navigation, so I was able to duck into the vent without being seen.

Belly crawling through the ducts, I held my lower stomach and groaned. A few tears dripped down onto the inside of my helmet as the pain only grew. By the time I made it to my room, I was reduced to dropping down onto the floor roughly. It took all my energy to pull off my suit without just ripping it, and sitting back against my bed, I rolled back my groin flap, allowing my ovipositor to slide out onto the floor.

Liquid leaked out from the tip, lubing up the inside to make the egg laying process easier, but this was still my first time doing so, and I was terrified of what it would feel like. Grabbing a towel, I placed it underneath me, then sat and waited for the feeling of the eggs trying to pass. Seconds turned to minutes, with nothing happening, but as soon as I tried to stand, the sharp pain began again, and I fell back down onto my knees.

“O-okay…” I gripped my ovipositor and stroked it a bit, using some internal muscles to push an egg out, when the extremely foreign sensation of a weight sliding down my ovipositor deep inside of me hit, and I pushed again, giving myself another small stroke to encourage the muscles in my ovipositor to push the egg out. After straining a few more times, I finally felt the egg at the base, and using my hands started squeezing it down the length until a deep bluish-green egg popped out onto the towel. Panting, a small smile formed on my face as I realized that I was that much closer to being done with this process.

I spent the next half hour pushing eggs out until I was left with a clutch of five, now a bundle in the towel. I’d never actually seen eggs before, so taking one in my hand, I held it up to the light and saw a small form inside the semi-translucent membrane. In my human-sized hand, the egg was about the size of an earthly orange, but I knew it’d seem smaller in my normal hand. Of course, now I had to get rid of them.

It would be extremely easy to just send them with the trash out of the airlock, but I knew I could find a better use for them — even though it meant revealing the truth to White about what happened during our sex when I was in heat. He was tasked with the upper engine, so it would be simple enough to get to him. As I made my way back up, I talked myself through how I would approach him with it, but I kept coming up blank. There were no excuses, I just had to be honest and hope for the best.

I entered the upper engine and waved him over, keeping the bundle of eggs behind my back, and he walked over to me, curious about what I had. Pulling the towel in front of me, I kept my eyes down, not wanting to tell him immediately. White cleared his throat.

“What’s that?” Taking the bundle from me, he opened it up and very nearly dropped it the moment he saw what was in it. “Wait, are these…?”

“That night, when I was in heat. I needed you to, um… well, I-I knew what would end my heat early.” My face became flustered and I ran my fingers through my hair. “Sorry I didn’t just… tell you. Nothing’s going to come from these, if you don’t incubate them right away they have no chance of surviving. Just… figured you wanted a free meal. Maybe put off killing someone else.” I tried to turn and walk away, but White seized my wrist.

“No, no hold on just a second. You… used me to get pregnant? Like, that’s something you can do, even though you’re male?” I tried and failed to shake him off.

“Biologically speaking, I’m both male and female, but I can only get pregnant during heat. I just, I didn’t want you holding it over me that I needed you to end my heat early, because face it,” with one strong yank, I pulled my hand free and stepped back, “You _know_ you would have milked that for all it’s worth.”

For once, White didn’t have a snarky comeback, and instead, it seemed like he was… sad? Scared? I couldn’t tell. But he stared down at the eggs and held them close to him.

“You said these won’t survive, right?” He kept his head down, and I hugged myself.

“Yeah…?” His continued silence concerned me.

“Alright. Good. Thanks for the free meal.” There was no humor in his tone, and I hesitated before leaving, glancing back at him staring at the eggs.

A part of me desperately wished he’d just laugh and gobble one up in front of me, but this seemed so… out of character for him. As much as I wanted to ask what was running through his mind, I’d been away from my tasks for nearly an hour, and I didn’t want to arouse suspicion. Still, White’s reaction shook me, and I could hardly focus for the rest of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're heading into the endgame now for the fic. There are still several chapters left to go (at least three), but this is the start of the final conflict, for anyone curious about what's left. Next chapter is going to be a doozy, so it might take me a little longer to write. There's a chance I might split it up into two separate chapters, but more than likely, the next one will just be really beefy.
> 
> 11/11/2020: Still working on the next chapter. Got sidetracked working on a drawing that took me about 30 hours, and I’ve had work and been dealing with some other issues. Also need to plan out the next immediate scenes, so that’s taking some time. But I am working on it! Just other things have been taking up space in my brain.


	8. New Leaf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We hit 100 kudos during this chapter! As a thank you, [I doodled this](https://kitkatpurrpurr.tumblr.com/post/635729987891281920/drawing-i-did-to-commemorate-100-kudos-on-my-among)!! Thanks again so much ;u;

The following days after I laid the eggs were unnerving to say the least. The energy radiating off of White every time I walked past him or even looked at him was so radically different than all the time leading up to me handing him the eggs, and even weirder was that he didn’t proposition me once the entire week. I was burning up inside, dying to know what was going on, but truthfully, being left alone by White was a miracle, and I was taking the opportunity to spend more time with Red.

He and I still continued to keep things… only mildly sexual, and he stopped asking me if I wanted to be touched, assuming that when I was ready, I’d ask. I didn’t expect it, since I was used to White, who did whatever he wanted. I was enjoying the reprieve, and yet, _not_ knowing what was eating up White started eating up at _me_.

The first time I tried cornering him about it, he escaped into a vent and I didn’t have the patience to follow him, and the second time we were approached by Black before I could ask. I had half a mind to slip into his room one night, but instead was interrupted by Red asking to sleep with me. It took another four days before White started behaving more like I was used to, but even still, he seemed like he was almost trying to be respectful of me.

I was walking through storage and saw him placing trash on the ejection platform. He was taking the time to actually stack everything up properly, and I strolled over to watch him work. As he closed the airlock doors, he noticed me and smirked.

“You here to make sure I actually do my tasks?” His voice was lighthearted and I rolled my eyes.

“Sure, you could call it that.” I leaned against the wall near the lever and crossed my arms, my thoughts beginning to race as I tried prepping myself to ask him about how he’d been. As White flipped the switch and the outer airlock doors started opening, a nearby red light flashed and a single loud beep rang out in the room, a small hiss of air escaping through the incomplete seal. The outer doors stayed mostly shut, but air still continued to leak from the room.

Instead of flipping up the switch to close the outer doors, White moved over to the inner pair to try and pull them closed. His glove snagged in the vacuum, which forced the doors open more, and after another two warning alarms went off, the outer set started sliding open, increasing the suction on White, who was now scrambling to hold himself inside the airlock.

“Mint!! Quick, turn it off!!” I’d never seen panic like this in his eyes, and I felt a tiny bit guilty that I took a modicum of pleasure in it. As I moved for the lever, I weighed the options presented to me. It was the first time I was seeing the accident I’d claimed took Blue’s life, and although letting White die and then posthumously accuse him of being an imposter was appealing, once again, it was always me winding up in these situations, and I couldn’t lie through my teeth again.

More of White’s body began to slip through, with him screaming in pain as his ribs were crushed against the doors. His claws tore through his gloves to hold him in place while I grabbed hold of the lever and shoved it up to turn it off. The outer airlock doors slammed close, with White collapsing to his knees as he caught his breath, looking up at me.

“For… for a second, I thought you weren’t gonna do it.” The smile he offered me felt… genuine, and I looked away uncomfortably.

“Well, I didn’t really have a choice.” Shrugging my shoulders, I almost moved to go back to my tasks, but instead I offered my hand to White so he could stand up, which he accepted graciously. He held my hand for a little longer than I expected, and when I found myself unable to leave, I turned to face him again.

“You did, and you chose to save me.” Perhaps realizing that being too nice was suspicious in its own right, White smirked a bit and let me go, shaking out the hand that had been exposed to space. After removing his gloves (which had been ruined by his claws), he scoffed quietly and headed out of the room.

“Thanks again, Mint,” he called to me as I walked towards comms, but I didn’t turn around. Although I was relieved to finally be saving a life instead of ending one, of all the people to save, it had to be the alien that had been messing with me for two months and now suddenly seemed to have a change of heart. I didn’t need validation for my actions from _him_.

Dinner that night was lively, with White regaling everyone with how heroic I’d been. Red was proud of me and gave me a big hug for doing so, but I couldn’t help but notice White keeping his attention trained on us the whole time. My mind echoed back to when I was in heat and he insisted on kissing me, making comments about how he’d seen Red and I doing it, and I began to worry that White was _stalking_ me. It certainly wasn’t anything I couldn’t see him doing, yet the logic behind it baffled me, short of him just being perverted. Well, he definitely WAS perverted, but to what extent?

Red told me he had a project he was finishing up, meaning he’d be preoccupied all evening, so I turned in for the night expecting uninterrupted sleep. Like a fool, naturally.

The sound of the vent opening stirred me, and I blinked to clear my vision. Neither of us needed the light on to see each other, so I sat up and tucked my blanket around my legs as I watched White drop down onto the floor. He seemed rather nonchalant, sighing as he stood up and moved to sit on my bed.

“Hey,” White slid a leg up and turned to face me, supporting himself on one hand while the other hung down casually, “I feel like I didn’t get to properly thank you for earlier. I mean, you saved my life, even after, I…” He trailed off and nervously rubbed the back of his head. One of his legs lightly bounced, and somehow I got the feeling being this nice was a foreign experience for him.

“You’re good, really.” Folding my arms, I glanced away. “I mean, wouldn’t you have done the same for me?” White scooted closer to me and placed a hand on my knee.

“Absolutely. We’re the outsiders on the ship, you know? At the end of the day, we have to look out for each other.” Giving me a light squeeze, he paused, then gave a soft, “hey.”

Looking up into his eyes, I saw they were narrow slits, and yet they were full of a mix of emotions. The care for his fellow imposter seemed genuine. Reverting part of himself back to his true form in this moment of closeness was revealing, and I joined him in allowing my eyes to turn back to the black pits. The smile he gave me in response felt… warm.

I understood his fear, having already been the sole imposter on board for the first half of the trip. It was lonely, being surrounded by people who would never understand me, who would jettison me off the ship if they found out the truth. Of course, White hadn’t ever given me a reason to enjoy his company considering how he’d been treating me. But now it seemed like that might change.

White moved his head closer to mine in the dark until our noses bumped. I gasped and leaned back, keeping my eyes trained on his as they nearly faded back to their human appearance. His unwavering gaze held my own, and I bit my lip, unsure of what his next move was.

“Tell me, Mint, what were your plans after this mission?” He didn’t move any closer to me.

I’d actually never thought about it. Maybe I’d convinced myself that I’d die during the mission, or perhaps escape to what remained of earth’s wilderness until I perished, but regardless, I didn’t really have an answer for him, not that it mattered.

“I was going to hop on board another ship, then another,” White continued, keeping our eyes locked, “Until I died.” Chewing on my lip anxiously, I felt him slide a hand up my side to my chin, which he delicately caressed. His head moved ever-closer to mine, but once again, he stopped short.

“I don’t want to die, Mint.”

My mouth opened up to respond, and White stroked my lips with his thumb, rubbing along the corners as if he were tempted to hook my cheek. Then our lips pressed together and I felt the instinctive desire to move away, but it faded the longer the kiss was held. I knew how earnestly he’d spilled his feelings to me this time; I felt his fears equally. If he was changing to be better, then I wasn’t going to do anything to discourage it. His tongue brushed over my lips, and I reciprocated, letting my tongue lengthen as the split tip flicked over his teeth. White lowered himself down onto me and embraced me as we continued our liplock, and against my better judgement, I pressed my hands to his chest.

Red’s face flickered in my mind and I faltered, sliding my head down to move our lips apart.

“I-I shouldn’t…” Not that I could tell him why I shouldn’t. White sighed deeply and moved back, glancing away from me.

“I’ll stop, if you want.” For a second, it looked like his eyes were glistening in the dark, and I felt the confliction in my chest rise. It was the first time White ever gave me a choice like this, but I didn’t want to upset him after this emotional moment we’d had. Besides, this was just to cheer him up and re-solidify our relationship as imposters into a healthier one. Hopefully Red could forgive me for that, if he ever found out.

Moving my hands to White’s cheeks, I pulled him back down on top of me, the hint of a smile traced across his lips as he dove back into the kiss. We embraced each other again and I pushed the thoughts of my partner from my mind. Our make out lasted so long I passed out underneath him, and the following morning, woke to find him fast asleep beside me.

My blood ran cold as I realized I hadn’t kicked him out before I went under for the night, and the implications worried me. I didn’t love White, even if I was actually starting to care about him, and this could give him the wrong idea.

“Hey, White! Wake up!” I nudged him gently at first, encouraging him to wake, but started shaking him a bit more when he refused to budge. His eyes fluttered open and peered up at me, a satisfied smile forming on his lips.

“Well hey there…” White moved to pull me back down into bed, but I pointed to the clock.

“You’ve gotta get back to your room. Black’s gonna expect us out there in like fifteen minutes, and you’ve gotta climb through the vents!” My leg bobbed nervously and White laughed loudly, making my face go pink. The last thing I wanted was Red waiting for me outside my door and hearing White’s voice in my room this early in the morning.

“Alright, alright. But, first I’ve got a serious question for you,” he slid to the edge of my bed and stretched as he stood, looking back at me, “What are your thoughts on Black being next?”

I whipped my head to face him and stepped back.

“E-excuse me, kill Black?” My face contorted into a grimace. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” The smile from his face dropped almost immediately.

“Think about it, with no captain, you or I could step up and take charge. Then there’s nothing stopping us from finishing the mission, and we can vote together if people want to eject someone once the deaths start happening. It’s foolproof!”

I hated to admit it, but it WAS a brilliant plan. Looking at it from the imposter side of things, it kept us safe and fed, but I also didn’t want to kill anyone else, or really have anyone die at all.

“I-I just think it’s hasty, especially after Lime’s death. Even if we voted together, we might not be able to stop them from kicking us off,” I responded. Anything I could do to delay a death, I would. Even (or perhaps, especially) if it meant manipulating White. “I mean, you know how I am, I hate all the killing… and I really liked when you showed restraint at first. I know you took out your energy on me before, but… maybe we can do it again… a little more, beneficially?”

I turned around to point my ass at him, and I watched him bite his lip. It wasn’t the first time I’d seduced him to get my way, so I didn’t feel as bad, especially if it meant he wouldn’t hurt anyone. I felt White press himself up against me, and I tilted my head back so my head would rest against his, his hands gripping my chest gently.

“Hmm, lemme give it some thought today,” he murmured his words as his hand traced up to my throat, not gripping it but instead lightly stroking it. Backing away, White headed for the vent, and as I turned to watch him exit, he gave me a wink. The flicker of panic was reignited, but I hoped that after last night, he’d wait before making any move.


	9. A Sense of Foreboding

I hurriedly changed into my suit once White left, and as I suspected, upon exiting, Red was leaning against the wall waiting for me. Nothing about him seemed to indicate he’d heard White in my room, which relieved me. I rushed us up the stairs to the cafeteria and grabbed us our breakfast, when I caught White entering out of the corner of my eye, and I looked away. Even from a distance, I knew he was watching us.

“So how did that project you were working on turn out?” I was eager to think about things that weren’t White.

“Mm, alright I guess. I was trying to make something to help automate some of the engine tasks, but I think I was just too tired to work on it.” Red took a bite of his breakfast and nudged me. “How was your evening?”

“Uneventful. Went to bed early and slept soundly all night,” I said, fiddling with my food a bit. Red kept his eyes over on me, and I smiled at him to try and ease his mind. It didn’t seem to work. Lying to him made me feel pretty awful, and I rushed through the rest of my meal (I’d learned to connect my upper mouth to my stomach for mealtimes to avoid explaining why I barely ate).

Black gave us our work assignments as always, although hearing that White was going to be on O2 and weapons while she was in navigation made me anxious. I trusted him not to make a move, and seeing the new leaf he wanted to turn over gave me hope, but I knew I’d never be able to put my full confidence in him. Watching him stick close to Black as they left didn’t help either.

Red was on electrical and I was tasked with storage and caf. Although we’d have opportunities to chat when I was in storage, Red pulled me aside for a moment before he left.

“Could we spend tonight together?” His voice was low, and I looked up into his eyes, seeing a hint of fear. “Just wanted a chance to talk.”

I nodded in response and watched him head off. The low rumble of the ship’s engine filled the empty cafeteria around me as I stood still, mind now swirling with all kinds of unpleasant worries. Red was suspicious of something, that much was obvious, and I hated knowing that it was probably because of White. All my body wanted to do was run downstairs and shower, to scrub off any trace of the other imposter.

Yellow periodically passed through the cafeteria, checking on the doors and grabbing a snack when she thought I wasn’t looking. My preoccupied mind meant I hardly noticed. Leaving the data download running, I emptied out the trash airlock and wandered over to the panel for the wires, absentmindedly unscrewing it as I placed it aside.

For all the times I’d fixed the wires and thought very little of it, staring at them this time reminded me of the first time Red showed me how to do it.

_Did you like me even back then, Red? Is that why you helped me?_

Leaning forward, I pressed my helmet to the wall and sighed, moving the wires across, once again repeating the instructions he’d given me months ago.

I thought about last night.

White had absolutely gotten the wrong idea of how I felt about him, based off of how he watched Red and I, and it was completely my fault, of course. All I wanted was for him to stop being such a homicidal asshole, but now he believed I was reciprocating affection, made worse by encouraging him to have sex with me instead of killing anyone, and I’d inadvertently painted myself into a corner. I wanted to protect Red, but at what cost? Our relationship?

Perhaps it was better for things to eventually fall apart with him. We were two wildly different species, and he couldn’t ever really get to know the real me. All I cared about was his safety, and so long as I could do that for him, then… it didn’t matter if we were together. Without even realizing it, my primary mission had become getting him home alive. Our separation was simply inevitable.

But I didn’t want it to happen just yet, not with another three and a half months of space travel left ahead of us.

After the download finished, I unhooked my PDA and left for admin, plugging it back in there so it could upload. My eyes glanced over at the ship map in the center of the room, and I noticed one light in weapons and another in navigation, indicating that White and Black were not around each other, which relieved me. At least he was sticking to his word.

I nodded off briefly in one of the chairs while I waited for the upload, but fortunately it finished before anyone walked past the room. Dinner wasn’t long after and was uneventful, and afterwards I slipped off for a quick shower before heading to Red’s room.

When I entered, I could see the project he’d been working on pushed aside on his desk, and he was lying on his bed fiddling with his PDA. He didn’t even really address me when I walked in. The energy he was putting off chilled me, and I placed my things aside as I watched him put down the PDA.

“Hey, Mint…” Red rubbed his eyes and stretched, then held out his hand motioning for me to come over. I politely obliged and sat down beside him, pulling my knees in and not really looking at him, which probably didn’t help, but I didn’t feel like he wanted me to hold him anyway.

“So, what’s up?” My body just wanted to wrap itself around him and forget about everything I’d been thinking of, but that was out of the question right now. Red took a deep breath as he contemplated how to word himself.

“First off, I want you to know, I don’t like beating around the bush about stuff. If something’s bothering me, I’ll tell you right away, rather than let it just fester.” He turned his head to look at me. “And, well, something’s bothering me.”

It took me a moment to find the energy to look up at him, and once we made eye contact, I could see the fear from earlier filling him up with greater intensity.

“I know you haven’t liked White from the get go, and I don’t blame you, but now it seems like… I dunno, he’s taking an interest in you?” My eyes widened and I glanced away. “I-I just want to know, is… is something going on between you two?” I gripped the bed to steady my shaking hands, and Red leaned down to try and look back up into my eyes, which I kept pointed elsewhere.

“No, I mean, I don’t know.” This was, at least, partially the truth. I really didn’t really know what White’s end goal was with me.

“I’m not accusing you of cheating on me. I just want to know if he’s threatening you, or making you feel uncomfortable. I could bring it up to Black.” A twisted smile formed on my lips and I started laughing, tears welling up in my eyes. I couldn’t even hold it back.

There was no way I could tell him that he was right, about all of it. Red so desperately wanted to keep me safe when he was so far out of his league, and I couldn’t do anything but lie to him. If Red really did try to get White in trouble, I couldn’t say if I could protect him from retaliation. Wiping away my tears before he could notice, I laid back on his bed and sighed, letting the smile fade. My initial reaction was going to make it hard to talk my way out of this.

“No, no, I’m okay. Besides, I don’t think Black wants to get involved in relationship business. I can handle myself.” Red scoffed at me and crossed his arms.

“Seriously? So you haven’t noticed him watching us? How he tries to be alone with you? How the two of you seem to be around whenever disaster strikes?” I sat up in a hurry and stared at him, my brows furrowing.

His accusations _felt_ like they were about infidelity, but also imposter behavior, and while they were totally justified, coming from him they felt like a stab in the back. I felt tremendous guilt for having to cover for myself, but there really wasn’t any honest way out of this.

“Look, Red, you’ve got to trust me. Trust that I can handle myself, that I can deal with him.” A burning feeling rose up in my chest and I almost felt my eyes flicker. “ _Please…_ trust me.”

Red groaned and scooted back on his bed, leaning against the wall. I watched him without moving back with him, and he stared at me, hands balling into fists, before he exhaled and released them, letting his head droop down a bit.

“I do… I just… I think about if White were an imposter, and if he wanted you…” Red rapped his fingers on the bed and I finally slid back beside him, leaning my head on his shoulder. Turning to face me, he gave me a soft kiss on the forehead and sighed under his breath, as I took his hand.

“I know you’re worried about me, and I appreciate it. But I really can handle whatever White throws my way. I’m not... scared of him.”

Whether I was trying to convince myself of that or not, I couldn’t say.

The two of us laid back on the bed together and I turned off the lamp. Red wrapped his arms and legs around me, and I curled up into his chest, feeling surrounded by his loving, comforting energy. Seconds turned to minutes, and I felt myself starting to get drowsy, but Red interrupted the quiet to ask me a question.

“Mint? What’s… what’s going to happen to us? Once we return to earth, I mean.” The deafening silence that followed as I desperately tried to think of an answer only made it harder to concentrate. His arms wrapped around me a little more tightly.

“I’m not sure. I, um… I didn’t know if you wanted to make this a thing back on earth too. I mean, I might get re-deployed when we get back…” I sure as shit didn’t want to go back out into space, but getting away from Red was probably best for both of us.

“I suppose that’s true. I’ve gone on ten space trips, and frankly, I think that’s enough for one lifetime. I’m gonna try and find work on-planet instead.” His hand slid to my head and tilted it so he could press our lips together for just a moment. “And I would love it if you joined me.”

Everything I’d been mulling over earlier evaporated into thin air and I kissed him again, wanting to desperately pretend that what he was saying could be our reality. I knew better, of course, but living in the fantasy helped take the painful edge off, even if it was only briefly. The reminder of what was most important crept back in, and I felt my chest fall a little bit.

“ _I love you, Mint_ ,” he whispered.

I had to keep Red safe, no matter what, even if it meant betraying his affections, whether he knew it or not.

“ _I love you too_.”

The thought made me sick.

—

I was organizing storage the following day, having just ejected the trash, and was trying to keep my mind busy with my tasks. When the lights unexpectedly shut off, it took me a second to realize it, but when Yellow walked in and saw me still sorting, she cleared her throat.

“Were you not gonna fix them?” I couldn’t tell her I didn’t need the light, so instead I chuckled.

“Red’s got it, he’s in electrical.” Yellow probably didn’t think I could see her roll her eyes when she left. Still, now that I was shaken out of my thoughts, I realized that the lights going out was probably not an accident, and I immediately ran for admin.

Two lights were on in navigation, with none in weapons or O2.

Sprinting out of the room, I headed up to caf, jumping into the vent and popping out in the hallway between navigation and comms. I could hear the faint squeak of a vent in nav being closed, and the lights switched back on, temporarily blinding me. As my vision cleared, I saw Black lying on the floor beside one of the chairs, blood splattered on the floor under her arm, which had been chewed through the suit. She was groaning and trying not to cry.

“Black!” I slid down to the floor beside her and tried helping her to her feet, doing my best to ignore the smell of blood that tempted my stomach to gurgle. There was no real response from her besides pained groans as we exited the room, and I felt anger burning in my chest as we walked through weapons, where White was sitting and working. Of course he’d used the vent to make his quick exit, and the fake shock on his face as we passed through made me want to lunge at him.

Entering medbay, I handed Orange our captain and she laid her down in a bed, removing Black's helmet and unzipping her suit. The wound wasn’t so bad, but it wasn’t a mere scratch either, and the fact that it was a _bite_ concerned Orange.

“Did you see anything Mint?” I opened my mouth to respond but Black shook her head.

“The lights were off. He wouldn’t have had a chance. And I didn’t either.” Even now, she was trying to put on a tough disposition in the face of a rather awful wound, and I felt my anger at White returning. “I heard him run in though.”

Black paused before glancing at me.

“Why _did_ you come to nav? You had no reason to.” I bit my lip and looked at the floor for a moment, trying to navigate this conversation delicately.

“I was in admin, and I noticed two lights were on in nav. That seemed suspicious to me.” Black looked down and thought for a moment, periodically grimacing as Orange treated her wound.

“Do you remember if there were lights on in the nearby rooms?” Her eyes bore down onto me, and I could tell she didn’t want to believe that either White or Yellow was capable of what happened to her.

Right now I could easily implicate White, since he wasn’t in either of his two assignments, but his threat towards me from the day he killed Lime echoed in my mind. Me both knowing to look at the map and then venting to get over there was enough to throw suspicion onto me, and with the very real chance we’d be collectively discussing who was responsible should I imply that it was a crewmate, my history of being around when disaster strikes, as Red had put it, would be too hard to ignore. White could get me thrown out and then freely kill everyone. It was just too dangerous to implicate anyone.

“No, the two lights in nav caught my attention right away and I didn’t notice anything off about the others.” There was a hint of disappointment in Black’s eyes, but she shrugged.

“Could be some kind of alien that got on board. We might need to inspect the ship or put out bait traps.”

I wasn’t sure if I admired my captain’s staunch refusal to consider the presence of an imposter, or if I was dumbfounded by it. Either way, I’d kept both White and myself safe another day, and began to leave for my tasks again. Black cleared her throat and I stopped, turning around to look at her.

“Thank you Mint.” It seemed difficult for her to admit that she’d had a moment of weakness when I found her, but her appreciation was genuine, and I nodded at her as I left.

As dinnertime rolled around, Orange exited medbay with Black, and Yellow rushed over to help her with opening her meal bag, which made me smile. All of us sat down to eat, with White and Red sitting on either side of me, and I did my best to ignore the former. Black waited for all of us to give our task updates before talking about the incident from earlier. She claimed it was an alien pest and discussed ways of dealing with them, then revealed my involvement in everything.

“Mint found me in navigation thanks to his instincts telling him to check the admin board when the lights went out. So, thank you Mint.” Her thanks this time was more performative, but I didn’t mind. Small applause went around the table, with Red giving me a proud smile, and White cheering, “Mint! You’re a hero!”

Feeling a small tug on my arm from White, I turned my head to face him, but before I could react, he pressed his lips to mine, giving me a congratulatory kiss in full view of everyone at the table.

Orange kept her applause going, but Yellow’s slowed. Red simply stared at us in shock. When I pulled my head back away from White, I saw the flicker of a possessiveness in his eyes, and I turned to face Red, who was now looking down at his food and eating in a hurry. Orange was starting to notice the energy at the table changing and stopped her applause, while Black and Yellow exchanged worried looks. No one spoke the rest of dinner time, and Red was the first to stand up and leave, dumping most of his dinner in the trash chute. I desperately wanted to follow him and tell him that White had kissed me totally unprompted, but I knew he needed time to calm down. White scooted closer to me once Red was out of the room and nudged me.

“Heh, guess I was a little too caught up in the moment.” I didn’t dare look up at him, instead focusing on eating and ignoring the looks from my fellow crewmates. I followed Red’s exit and went to my room, burying my face in my pillow after I changed into my pajamas, when the alert I was anticipating but wishing I could avoid rang out.

_RED REQUESTING ENTRY._

Red entered and stood near my desk, arms crossed. His eyes bore down into my soul as I sat up on my bed, keeping my gaze anywhere but on him.

“Mint, what the hell was that about?” As always, Red was sharp and to the point. I still didn’t look up at him.

“White kissed me out of nowhere, I didn’t mean for him to.” Red scoffed, causing me to look up. As much as I hated doing so, we made eye contact, and the pain evident in him was plain to see, even if it was hiding behind a curtain of anger.

“Alright, so, he kissed you out of nowhere. And he watches us, just because. And he actively spends time alone with you-” Before Red could continue, I stood up and tossed up my hands.

“What’s going on with you? Just last night I told you that I could handle him messing with me, but it seems like you still don’t trust me!” My spines threatened to pop out of my back, and my nails started to get a little longer, so I took a deep breath, calming myself down. “Please, Red, I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

Red rubbed his face with both hands and groaned, turning away from me as I stepped over to him. I wanted to try holding him, but he wanted none of it and pushed my hands away.

“I can’t hold you right now. I just don’t know what to think.” He turned his head to look at me. “I want to trust you, Mint, but sometimes it feels like you just don’t tell me everything. You _laughed_ when I asked you if White made you uncomfortable, after previously being extremely wary of him, and like, what am I supposed to make of that?”

I didn’t have a good answer for him, but it seemed I didn’t have to have one at all.

_WHITE REQUESTING ENTRY._

Red dropped his arms to his sides, and faced me fully, eyes wide.

“Babe, can I come in?” White’s voice was muffled from the other side of the door.

A smile formed on Red’s mouth, and pretty soon, he was full-on laughing as he moved to leave my room. I darted over to grab him but he shoved me off. Tears burned in my eyes as I reached a hand out, then held back, knowing there was nothing I could do or say to make him stay.

“R-Red…” My voice shook so much I almost couldn’t say his name.

Placing his hand on the door, Red paused for just a moment, glancing back at me. I could tell he wanted to pretend like White didn’t exist and that my infidelity didn’t exist, but on the other side of the door was the man he thought I really loved, and that drove him to commit to his decision.

“I can’t deal with this. Have fun with White, but don’t bother me anymore.”


	10. True Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M for violence.

Red pushed past White as he exited, not looking back whatsoever, and White shrugged as he let himself into my room. In a moment of blind rage, I rushed forward and shoved him against the door, beating my fists on him as my eyes and antlers shifted back to their true forms.

“How could you!? You piece of shit, you ruined the one good thing I had!!” Tears streamed down my cheeks as I almost clawed him up, but instead he pulled me into a tight hug and started shushing me. I wanted to shove him away and eject myself off the ship, but the longer he held me the more I felt the anger subside and be replaced with guilt.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, Mint, but you and Red were incompatible. Would you rather this have happened now, or in three months when the mission ends and you’re that much more invested?” I froze, then pushed away from him.

“A-are you saying… you wanted this to happen?” My true teeth started to form, but White shook his head, rubbing my arm comfortingly.

“No, I didn’t want you to be hurt like this, but I knew it would happen eventually. I mean, what did you expect? I’ve seen this happen to other imposters before,” White pulled us over to the bed and sat me down, still keeping hold on me, “Those who fell in love with humans, then wound up ejected because they revealed themselves. The truth always comes out eventually. I just… didn’t want you to be killed for it.”

White was making a surprising amount of sense for the second time, and I _hated_ it. I wasn’t sure if I would have preferred being alone to cope with the break up instead of having White here to comfort me, but deep down, I was glad to have someone hold me, not that I felt I deserved it.

I still loved Red, and that wasn’t about to change.

Encouraging me to lie back with him, White stroked my chest and rested his head on his hand, looking down at me. I tried to maintain eye contact, but my vision marbled as more tears formed, and I rolled into his chest, the cries turning into sobs as I mourned the loss of my relationship. White chose to say nothing.

An hour passed before he nudged me, and I looked up at him. He held a vial of blood in his hand and I sat up, eyes widening.

“W-what is that?” He gave me a smirk and opened it up, tilting it back to drink half of it, then offered me the rest of it.

“It’s Black’s blood. I knew attacking her was risky, but if I’m gonna avoid killing anyone, then we need actual sustenance.” I took the vial and stared at the plasma, contemplating whether or not to have it. “You haven’t eaten in forever, and I know you’re going to get hungry soon, so just… drink it. It’ll help.”

The image of Black lying on the floor earlier that day flashed in my mind as I started to tilt it back, making me falter, but I shut my eyes and swallowed every last drop, feeling a slight bit of energy and strength return to me. White recapped the vial and reached over me to place it on the nightstand, taking that opportunity to crawl on top of me.

He stared down into my eyes and lowered himself down to kiss me, which I resisted for a moment… then gave in. It didn’t matter anymore, I wasn’t cheating on Red. My mouth opened wider and invited him to deepen the kiss, tears once again streaming down my cheeks. His face mandibles slowly pushed out from his mouth and rubbed my cheeks to wipe away my tears, and under his breath, I could hear him whisper, “I’m sorry.”

—

The following week was deeply uncomfortable for everyone on board, except perhaps White. Black and Yellow knew that Red and I had been involved to some degree since almost the beginning, and seeing us sitting apart, and not even speaking, actually seemed to sadden them. They smelled more and more like each other, and I knew that my relationship with Red had probably inspired them to get closer. Orange had tried talking to me about the break up once but I’d blown her off.

White visited my room frequently, though we didn’t have sex all that often. He seemed far more interested in being romantic, which I mostly reciprocated mindlessly. Red avoided both of us, but especially me, to the point where he took showers at odd times, and I only ever saw him at breakfast and dinner. My whole body _ached_ with how much I missed him. I didn’t even know it was possible to feel so miserable.

One day I didn’t even bother getting up to work. When Black knocked on my door, I told her I was feeling under the weather, but that I’d go to medbay later when I felt well enough to get up. I never went to medbay. White wanted to come in and visit me and I sent him away, though I think he still checked on me through the vents.

...

_“I’m worried about you, you’ve been taking so many sick days…”_

_“Yeah, well, I don’t feel like getting up anymore.”_

_“Is there anything I can do to help? Should I get you some blood? I’m sure being hungry isn’t helping.”_

_“No, I just… I need more time. Sorry, I don’t mean to worry you…”_

...

A month passed without incident, but I knew full-well that the lack of incidents was because White was holding back. The two of us had gone two months now without a proper meal, and while I was happy that things were uneventful, we’d be driven to desperate measures soon.

We were lounging in my room, playing games on our PDAs while lying together on my bed, when my stomach grumbled, which White laughed at.

“Yeah, I hear that.” Placing his PDA down, he sighed and patted his stomach. “Mint, we really do have to plan our next kill. Otherwise it could wind up happening spontaneously, and I don’t want to have to work around that.” I craned my head back and groaned. He was right, but I still resisted.

“Did you have someone in mind?” Looking up at him, I narrowed my eyes, a smirk crossing over his lips.

“Red.”

I sat up in an instant and stared at him, which he raised an eyebrow at.

“I mean, he broke your heart like a month ago, he’s an easy kill.” When I didn’t immediately agree, White sighed and placed his PDA down, putting his hand on my shoulder, which I bristled at.

“No, _I_ broke his heart, and even still, targeting him would be stupid. It throws suspicion on both of us, and is a stupid plan.” My eyes flickered.

“No, it’s not a stupid plan. If it puts suspicion on anyone, it’s _me_ , but if you think it would be a problem, then I can kill Red, and you can kill Black. Yellow and Orange will be like chickens with their heads cut off, and we can take them down easily afterwards.” He stayed trained on me, and I chuckled dryly.

“You’re kidding me, right?” I moved back and stood up beside the bed, trying to stifle the flabbergasted smile that was creeping onto my face as I paced around my room. White’s eyebrow once again went up and he folded his arms.

“I’m not kidding, Mint. There’s no way we can kill just one person, and we sure as hell can’t leave Black or Red alive any longer. Red will immediately suspect you, since he doesn’t trust you for shit, and Black has been suspicious of you for as long as I’ve known you. Yellow will have to be the first to go after that, since she’s close to Black. If you want to keep Orange alive so we have a snack, I won’t say no.”

My teeth and claws now shifted out, and I felt my heart race. I rubbed my face with one of my hands and turned to face him.

“No, no! We’re not killing anyone, okay?”

The speed with which White leaped up from the bed and cornered me was terrifying, his slit pupils staring me down, while his mouth tried not to contort into a snarl. I could feel his breath on my face, his voice low.

“I am starving, and I’m not waiting another fuckin’ month for blood. I want to _eat_.” My hands shook as he gripped my sides, and I glanced away, nodding slightly. This kind of energy from him I hadn’t felt in almost two months, and I was immediately taken back to the first night we’d hooked up. I felt the burning in my eyes… and then my sides, as his claws dug into my skin. Realizing what he was doing, he released me, eyes going back to normal, and he shook his head.

“See, Mint? This hunger caused me to hurt you, someone I swore I wouldn’t anymore.” I groaned and rubbed the sore spots, turning away and hugging my arms. Gently placing a hand on my shoulder, he pushed me so I would face him, then tilted my head up. “I’ve got a plan, but I’m going to need you to do something you’re not gonna like.”

I snarled at him and pushed him off of me, strolling over to the other side of the room to face away from him. White slid his hands delicately down my sides and pressed himself against me, letting his head rest on the crook of my shoulder.

“Mint, baby, please? Just hear me out. We can start with just one, I promise. I won’t even force you to do the killing.” Although I was strongly against _any_ idea, the returning grumble in my stomach meant I didn’t have a choice but to listen.

“Okay,” I turned to face him, “Let’s hear it.”

—

The following day, right at 1200 hours, I exited the reactor and quickly darted over to security. The sweat in my suit as I anticipated the execution of the plan was unbearable, and I turned the dial on my suit to ventilate more strongly, hoping the sweat wouldn’t be too visible on my face as I walked over to Red. He’d seen me enter, of course, being tasked to watch cams this week. His gaze was trained on the monitors and he didn’t look over at me.

“What do you need, Mint?” I bit my lip and glanced at the vent, where I could smell White waiting.

“I, um, I wanted to talk about what happened. Just, I dunno, clear the air.” Red still didn’t move, but I was ready to pull out all the stops to get his attention off the screens.

“I want to be totally honest.” Which… I’d still be lying by omission, but would be considerably more honest than I had been.

Taking one last, long look at the screens, Red turned to face me arms crossed as he leaned back in his chair. I leaned on the desk beside me and heard the faint scuffle of White heading to medbay.

“Alright, spill it then.”

I knew I had to keep him preoccupied for several minutes, but since the monitor still in his peripheral vision was the one White would be crossing, he had to move slowly. Clearing my throat, I tried not to glance at the monitors, which were still showing nothing.

“I was never secretly dating White. But, he did try to proposition me, many times. I learned how to deal with it, turned him down every time, but… that kiss… that was his way of trying to push us apart. And it worked.”

White entered the field of the camera and started to slowly creep along the way to the upper engine. I held my tongue, but sweat beads dripped down my forehead, and I watched as Red processed what I told him.

The sounds of Yellow fiddling with her tools in the other room caught my attention, and I saw White edging closer. Remembering how she’d been so attentive of Black after White attacked her, then her concern when Red and I broke up, I knew I didn’t want her to die. I couldn’t do that to Black. Red opened his mouth to respond, but I pointed a finger at the screen and stammered.

“W-White’s acting weird, what’s he doing?” Shooting up from his chair, Red ran out of the room and into the upper engine room, which I closely followed.

“White!! What the hell are you doing?” His words were sharp, sharper than that day he’d defended me from Blue, and I cowered behind him. White’s face paled and he rubbed the back of his neck.

“O-oh nothing, thought I’d dropped a tool around here earlier, but I guess not.” His exit from the room was swift, but I could tell he was fuming at being caught. I followed Red back to security after he waved at Yellow, and he grumbled to himself as he plopped back down in his chair.

“Thanks for that, Mint.” There was a long pause as he thought over the information I’d dropped on him earlier, but of course, the first thing he asked was, “Then why are you dating him now?”

“Well, I figured you’d never want me back. And I didn’t feel like fighting him anymore, I guess. It’s cowardly, but less stressful than just trying to avoid him all the time.” I tapped the sides of my legs nervously, glancing away.

“Makes sense. But you’re right. It is pretty damn cowardly.” His head turned to look at me again for just a moment. “I appreciate the honesty, but I’m not changing my mind.” I put my hands up defensively.

“Of course! That’s fine, I wasn’t here to change your mind. I just wanted you to know the truth.” I didn’t receive any acknowledgement from Red, so I took that opportunity to make my exit.

—

White didn’t show up to dinner, but I knew he’d be in the vents. I had no clue how he’d react to my ruining our meal, I just hoped he wouldn’t take it out on me too harshly. The moment I entered my room and closed the door, he dropped down from the vent and I screamed.

“What the fuck, White!?” He moved surely and shoved me back onto the bed.

“Exactly, what the FUCK, Mint!?” His hand pressed to my throat and pinned me to the mattress, panic setting in immediately as I tried to pry his hand off. “The plan was perfect until you let him catch me! We were THIS close to dinner!” In emphasis, he squeezed me and I whined as the tears returned to my eyes.

“I-I’m s-sorry-!!” It was hard to speak with him choking me, and he released me as he threw me to the floor, sitting down on my bed. Coughing, I caught my breath while trying to still the shakes in my body.

“Yeah, well, sorry doesn’t feed us, does it? Ugh, we were SO CLOSE, fuck!!” His claws shifted out and I noticed a pair of horns on his crown pushing out. Apparently, the hungrier he was, the less he could contain his true form.

“We can try again tomorrow, m-maybe try disabling comms or something.” Two horns on each of his shoulders ripped through his shirt, which he responded to by ripping off his shirt completely with one hand. The maw on his chest was growing agitated.

“No, I can’t hold out that long. I got too close to a meal, and there’s no possible way I can hold back my true form. I’m gonna have to go after someone tonight.” His eyes met mine and I froze. “Red, I’m going after Red.”

Just as he moved for the door, I threw myself between him and it, spreading my arms out.

“Wait!! You can’t kill him!” Every second his form got more terrifying, and I worried that I wouldn’t be able to stop him if he continued reverting back to his true self.

“Why the fuck not? Why do you care? If anyone should feel rage at being betrayed, it’s you-” My antlers sprung out of my head and my spines tore open the back of my shirt as I snapped at him, cutting him off.

“No! You asshole, I betrayed HIM! I’m the one who went to you for sex when I needed to get over my heat, I let you spend the night, I’m the piece of shit, not him!” Taking a few quick breaths, I let my spines and antlers retract. White scoffed, then pulled down his pants, which appeared to release some more spikes and bug-like appendages on his back, which hung down behind him.

“And still, why does this matter? You have me, I care for you and I’ll take care of you once we get rid of everyone else. He deserves to die. He’s just a pathetic, miserable human.” Gritting my teeth, I reached forward and shoved him to the floor.

“Because I love him!! I love him for being human! I love him far more than I’ll EVER love you, and if anyone deserves to die it’s YOU for threatening him from the very beginning!” My second stomach opened up, ripping my shirt even more as my eyes flickered, and White stared at me bug-eyed. Pushing himself off the floor, he dusted himself off, then smiled at me, his eyes seething with rage.

“No wonder you were willing to put up with me. You’d do anything for him.” A dark chuckle left his throat. “Then prove it.”

White’s hand shot out and gripped my hair, throwing me to the floor as he forced open my door and ran out to Red’s room. I leaped up and sprinted after him, my heart pounding a million times a minute as I feared I was already too late, and yet, when I entered his room, where Red was cowering in his bed at the even taller, fully reverted White, it was clear White was waiting for me.

“So, Red! Mint here says he loves you, that he’d do anything for you. I wanted to test the limits of that. You want to help me out?” As he moved to grab him, I forced my way between them, keeping Red to my back as I stared down the other imposter, who was grinning from ear to ear, then neck side to neck side as his other three mouths grinned as well.

“Perfect! This is just what I wanted to see. Now, there’s no way he can maintain that form and protect you; I’d just cut him open like a fish. But, I’ll let you in on a secret! He’s a monster, just like me! Well, not exactly like me, but, you’ll see.” Reaching forward, he lashed out with his claws and slashed my chest, drawing blood. Red moved to get closer to me but I put my arm out to stop him.

“You can’t hold yourself back forever, Mint! Or you and Red will be my next meals!” White stretched out his arm again, which I knocked back. My eyes glanced back to Red, and I felt myself well up, realizing that this was the last time he’d ever see me as a person and not a monster. Slowly, they turned black, leaving a small light that was trained on him, and I sighed.

“I’m so sorry Red…”

Ripping off my shirt, I allowed my spines to push out, my antlers now fully springing out from my head, which I shook out until the original deer-like skull shape formed, sharp teeth and all. My legs elongated and my feet turned into sharp hooves, a small tail pushing out from my spine. As my claws finished lengthening, I looked back at White, who seemed to go pale as he realized that in my true form, I completely dwarfed him. My second mouth opened wide and my tongue lashed out in his direction, as I opened my mouth wide and roared at him. I dared not look back at Red.

Shoving White forward, I gripped around his throat and dug my claws in, causing him to squeal in pain. One of his mouths bit me and I pulled my hand back, while he dove forward and scratched my thigh. I grabbed one of the claws on his chest and threw him against the wall, but I held on and pulled him away to slam him again, until he grabbed me and dragged his claws down my upper arm.

“Fuck!!” He rolled on the floor when I dropped him, trying to grab for my ankles, but instead was the recipient of a sharp kick when the tips of my hoof jabbed into his back. Blood spilled onto the floor underneath him.

My eyes caught a glance of Red, who had completely backed up against the wall on his bed, color drained from his face as he saw the violence before him, which White used to his advantage. While I was distracted, he grabbed my leg and jerked, causing me to slip to the floor which my antlers hit first. White rolled onto his all fours and climbed on top of me, maw open wide and grasping for me. He’d forgotten about my second mouth, which opened up wide and my tongue swiped along his chest skin, the fast-acting neurotoxin slowing him down. I took that opportunity to pull my legs in and kick him off in one swift motion.

White hit the wall roughly, and I sat up, moving forward to keep him pushed against it. He was more resilient to the toxin than humans were, but not immune. I felt him struggle in my arms, my maw opening wide as I primed to bite him, when he pulled my left arm down to his chest and pushed it into his maw. The claws contracted around me and I felt his inner teeth pushing into my flesh to try and consume me, but I wasn’t going to let him try and get the better of me. Yanking my hand away, I staggered backwards, bumping into Red’s nightstand and knocking his lamp to the floor.

Although still under the effects of the neurotoxin, White primed himself for attack, clearly aiming to lunge at Red who was no longer directly behind me. The moment he leaped towards the love of my life, I felt a fire inside of me spill out into every inch of my being, my refusal to allow any harm to come to Red, and I sprung forward, my antlers nailing him dead in the chest and piercing him through his maw.

Warm blood splattered my face as I pinned him to the wall, sliding him up as I stood up more. The screams of agony coming from his body were music to my ears. I used both hands to hold him in place, every so often my hand slipping to the side as he struggled in my grasp, leaving fresh wounds all along his skin. Every little motion he made to try and free himself caused more blood to leak from him, and I watched the pool beneath him grow.

A low grumble welled up in me as I felt him lose energy in the struggle, the deepest satisfaction of being the one to kill him flooding me, until finally he stopped moving and I allowed him to fall to the floor, dead.

The silence of the room, besides my panting, was deafening. I had only a short amount of time to eat before I would have to run, and lowering myself onto White, opened up my second mouth to consume him as quickly as I could. Trying not to think of what Red was probably thinking about the sight in front of him, I swallowed down my last bite and stood up, looking back over at Red.

He was still in shock on his bed, staring at me and all the blood that I was covered in. We made eye contact and I felt the pang in my heart. I had to leave him behind.

Pushing through the door, I sprinted down the hallway and opened up one of the escape pods. Climbing in despite my size, I closed the door and primed the pod for departure, which was difficult since my hands were shaking.

_ESCAPE POD EJECTING IN 15 SECONDS._

Turning back around, I saw Red running out of his room and over to the escape pod door, eyes still wide.

_10, 9, 8…_

He placed a hand on the window as his eyes glossed over.

_7, 6, 5…_

I knew I had to leave, there was no way out of this situation without being ejected, and without me, there were no imposters left on board, but…

_4, 3, 2…_

...Red didn’t want me to go.

_1…_

I slammed my hand on the cancel eject button and the door slid open, causing me to fall forward out of the pod. Landing on my knees, I looked up into his eyes and could see the tears streaming down his cheeks. The very thought of losing me forever like that drove him to cry, even though I was a monster, a monster who had killed in front of him, and who had broken his heart. His hands moved to my jaw and he tilted my head up, very lightly stroking my skull. Even now, he showed tenderness to me, and I felt very undeserving of it. The pits of my eyes began to flow with tears, and a mournful sob rose from my body as I slowly transformed back to my humanoid self.

The other three crewmates ran over to see what the commotion was about, but by the time they reached us, I was human again, naked on the floor, crying into Red’s hands.

“What… happened?” Black was shocked by the blood trail and how covered in blood I was, with Yellow sticking close to her. Orange hung back, afraid of me, but Red merely shed his shirt and let me wrap it around my hips. His voice was unnervingly calm.

“White was an imposter. Mint killed him to protect me.” Pulling me off the floor, he led me to the bathroom door and pushed me through. He shed his underwear as we moved into a stall together, and turning on faucet, allowed the cold water to run over him with a short exhale before it warmed up.

“Here, this should be warm enough for you.” When he stepped back, I entered the stream of water. My mind was completely locked up. The shock of killing in front of Red, almost sending myself out into space, and then breaking down completely in front of him, it was all so much that my overwhelmed mind simply short-circuited. This didn’t seem to bother Red.

He grabbed soap and rubbed it all over my body, being careful around the seam where my second mouth was and making sure to rinse me off completely. Leading me out of the stall once I was clean, he grabbed a towel that he’d left there earlier and dried me off, wrapping it around me and grabbing his clothes before we walked to my room. The others had gone back to bed, and I tried not to look at the trail of blood or the overwhelming stench of death emanating from Red’s room as we went by.

My room’s door was still open when we arrived. I was led to my bed so Red could run back to grab a change of clothes for himself, and when he returned, closed the door behind him. My cataonic state remained, and Red sighed.

“I can grab your clothes for you, but you’re gonna have to dress yourself.” He was already up and rummaging through my drawers, tossing me a t-shirt and boxers. Shaking my head a little bit, I stood up and started pulling on my clothes while he did the same, and once we were dressed, I dropped the balled up towel on the floor and laid down on my side. Red didn’t move initially, but then climbed into my bed and hugged me from behind. I noticed he kept his hands down near my flank and not up higher on my chest where my mouth seam was.

“Let’s sleep. We’ve always got the morning to think about this.”

Neither Red nor I fell asleep quickly. Truthfully, I think he was afraid I’d turn into a monster again and eat him, but I think a deeper part of him knew I wouldn’t which was why he laid with me at all.

Despite everything that had happened that night, I was glad he’d convinced me to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, two chapters in one day, I'm amazed too haha. Not too many chapters left now, probably two, maybe three? Thanks for reading so far, the support has been amazing. c:
> 
> Edit: I want to add that the reason they didn’t do a comms sabotage the first time around is because everyone goes down to comms when that sabotage happens, since all the computers and PDAs shut off, so it’s harder to do a kill, especially since Yellow would come into view of Red before White could get close.


	11. Light of a New Day

Upon waking up the following morning, I barely moved at all. Red was still sleeping behind me, so I rolled onto my back and nudged him, whispering to him to wake him up. The feeling of his arms slowly unwrapping from around my body as he pulled away left a slight chill across me. As much as I wanted to turn over and bury my face into his chest, I didn’t even know if that was something he was comfortable with, or if last night was just to comfort me after something traumatic.

I wanted to explain myself completely to him, come right out and tell him everything I’d been putting up with from White, but right now wasn’t the right time, especially with the meeting I knew we’d be having at breakfast. Red needed time to process the events of last night, and I honestly probably did too. Hopefully it wouldn’t be while fighting for my life.

We both sat up together and I slid off the bed, grabbing my robe and a spare for Red, which I tossed to him. Neither of us looked into his room as we headed up to the cafeteria. The remaining crew, consisting of Black, Yellow, and Orange, were all seated at one of the tables waiting for us. For all I knew, they could have been waiting there all night for this meeting, since none of them looked like they had gotten any sleep. When I sat down, they all seemed to creep closer to each other, unlike Red, who sat somewhat near me. Black was, of course, the first to speak.

“I honestly don’t know where to begin with this.” The long pause that followed only made the pit in my stomach grow. “I… um… hmm. I guess… When did you find out White was an imposter?” Her words were clearly directed at me.

I’d grown so tired of lying to them, and now was the perfect opportunity to come right out. It didn’t matter if I died now. Red was safe, I’d guaranteed that, and now I could clear (most) of my conscience and be done.

“The day he boarded. He identified me right away and wanted me to help him kill everyone.” My eyes remained trained at the table, terrified to see how my admission of such things was going over with everyone else. “I refused, but he forced my involvement once… with Lime.”

I could hear Black whisper an “I knew it” to herself. The guilt bubbling up inside of me threatened to overflow, and as I tried to hold back the lump in my throat, I felt it best to just spill everything.

“W-White had gone without eating for weeks, he used me to distract Lime in order to attack, but I didn’t even know he was going to attack until I had already done my part. A-and Blue? He was right about me, and he threatened to out me to you all.” Tears were trickling down my cheeks, my eyes flickering between their human and true form. Although they couldn’t see it very well, the other side of the table noticed that something was up with my eyes, and they shrunk back a bit. Red remained still.

“I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry I killed him and lied to you all, I just… I was just trying to survive.” Finally I looked up, and the moment I made eye contact with Black, I felt all of her fear and frustration at not being able to protect her crew pour onto me, and my eyes reverted back, causing her own to widen.

The only way to convey to her my true feelings, my regrets and sorrow, was to show it to her through my true eyes. Much like that night with White when he’d done the same to me, I needed her to know that I wasn’t obfuscating anything. I genuinely felt awful for everything I’d put her (and the crew) through.

“White was gonna kill you next, after Red. And just yesterday, he sent me to distract Red from cams so he could kill Yellow.” I could see the color drain from both of their faces as I revealed this, and even Red tilted his head. “Instead I pointed him out when he got on the screen so Red could catch him. I really, really didn’t want anyone else to die.”

Orange was nervously fiddling with her robe and avoided looking at me. Yellow was rubbing Black’s back, whose eyes had dropped to the table, and Red rested his head with his fist to his lips, keeping his gaze down. It seemed none of them even wanted to look at me, and although I couldn’t blame them, I still hated this feeling that they didn’t want to face reality.

“So what now?” I wanted to continue, but as I opened my mouth to do so, I was suddenly at a loss for words. Did I want to suggest ejection? Of course not, but how else was this going to end up? Black’s eyes glanced between Yellow and Orange before looking back up into mine.

“Do you need to kill one of us to survive?” It was hard to give her an answer with the way she was staring me down, because I knew if I said yes, that was it.

“I… I don’t know. I honestly don’t.” Black sat back a bit, eyelids relaxing as she sighed. “What I ate of White will keep me fed for a while, but by the end of the mission, I-I don’t know.”

“Right, the end of the mission. What are you going to do then? Because I sure as hell won’t let you back on this ship.” Her tone alone indicated she was ready to eject me, and it almost distracted me from the fact I was once again being questioned about my plans after everything was said and done.

“I don’t know! I didn’t want to go back out into space anyway, but-” Black cut me off before I could continue.

“So you’re going to waltz out onto the planet and have free reign to billions of humans?” She chuckled dryly. “Nuh-uh. There’s no way around it. I’m sorry, Mint, but there’s really only one thing we can do.”

Black sat up straight and cleared her throat.

“I’m going to take a vote. If you want to eject Mint for being an imposter and a threat to the crew, say aye. I say aye.” Her hand went up as she spoke, and Yellow was quick to follow.

“Aye.” The two of them looked over at Orange, who was chewing her lip and reluctantly released her robe from her hand to raise her hand as well.

“Aye.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Red clenching his fist more and more as the vote swung in favor of kicking me out, until he slammed his palm down on the table and stood up.

“Nay!”

My eyes widened as I looked up at him. His teeth were gritted and I shrunk back as I felt the waves of anger radiating off of him like I’d never felt before. Before I could reach up to touch him, Yellow and Black stood up to walk around the table, grabbing hold of my arms and leading me away towards the airlock in storage. I vaguely struggled in their grip, as Red tried to stop them.

“You can’t just eject him! He saved my life!! He wouldn’t hurt any of you!” Straining my head to look back at him, I saw Orange separate him from the group, and my survival instincts kicked in. As much as I didn’t want to transform, my antlers grew out from my head and my claws lengthened, my attempts to free myself now significantly easier, with Yellow and Black backing away in terror as I shifted back into my true form again. Even now though, I didn’t want to hurt or scare them, so I cowered down and tried to hide my face. My body grew more and more monstrous, but the two of them still moved towards me to back me up to the airlock.

I watched as Red darted towards electrical, with Orange chasing after him, while Yellow and Black continued edging closer, trying desperately to work through their fear as they forced me into the airlock. My arms shot out to the side and I stopped moving once they hit the wall, staring down at the two crewmates as they realized I wouldn’t go any further. Yellow ran over to the mop bucket in the corner of the room and brought it over. Being jabbed in the stomach with the mop, my second mouth opened up out of discomfort, and she dropped it, shrieking and running behind Black, who picked it up to continue prodding me. When I still refused to budge, she started whacking me with it instead, and I flinched.

I swatted away the mop and it fell to the floor several feet to the side, leaving Black and Yellow defenseless. They cowered in front of me, and I desperately wished I could convey to them that I wasn’t going to hurt them, but as my hand came into view when I went to shield myself, I saw my long claws and the terror on their faces and I knew that there was nothing I could do to make them feel comfortable around me.

Taking a small step back into the airlock, I watched as their eyes widened, but when Black started to move for the switch, all of the lights went out, and I felt the ship noticeably decelerate. The two crewmates rushed away from me, tripping over each other in the pitch black, but my vision hadn’t been impaired. Running for where I’d last seen Red, I passed by Orange in the hallway, slumped over with a bloody nose while clearly dazed, while Red was inside of electrical, covered in cables he’d been frantically yanking out. I couldn’t speak to him in this form, so I grumbled fearfully and watched as he blindly turned around.

“Mint!? Is that you?” He shoved as many wires off of himself as he could and moved for where he’d heard me. I carefully reached a hand for him, making sure to keep my claws away from his face, and I pulled him close, surprised when he wrapped his arms tightly around me.

“God… I thought I was too late…” His breath shook as he spoke, stroking my back nervously. I felt my own body shake lightly as I realized I was no longer staring death in the face, at least, for the moment. I growled and nuzzled him with my chin as I struggled to take deep breaths, hearing the sounds of rapid footsteps approaching the room. Black entered with a flashlight and pointed it straight at us, with Red moving in between the captain and I.

“Step away from him, Red! He’s not safe!” Her demand was met with Red throwing a loose cable at her, which she just barely ducked.

“The hell I will! He saved my life when White was going to kill me, and if he were going to kill any of us for fun, he would have had endless opportunities by now. We don’t even know if he NEEDS to kill, so why are we?” I saw him glance up into my dark eyes, clearly hoping his instincts were right. I looked into Black’s eyes and nodded, my heart threatening to burst out of my chest. As much as I wanted to revert back to my human form, the stress of the situation prevented me from doing so, so instead I kneeled down behind Red and cowered, my head pressed to his side. He responded by lowering his hand and gently holding me, his thumb stroking the bridge of my nose. Black gritted her teeth, fingers tightening around the flashlight, before tossing up her hands and storming out of the room.

“You had BETTER fix the power in the next ten minutes or I’m ejecting you BOTH.” Never had a threat like that been more relieving.

Outside the room I could hear her joining Yellow in taking Orange to medbay, and Red turned around to face me, his eyes searching for me in the dark. Now that I was finally out of a life or death situation, my body was comfortable enough to revert back, and as quickly as I could I turned human again, albeit in slightly stretched out, torn clothes. My arms wrapped around him and I pressed my cheek to his, letting my tears flow again.

“Red… thank you…” He responded by burying his face in my neck, clearly trying not to cry. I felt him pull me down to the floor where we kneeled together and simply held each other. Despite our time limit to clean up Red’s mess, I didn’t want this moment to end. It was just us in the dark, holding each other like we’d never done before, and feeling safe, knowing we would never lose each other.

“C’mon,” Red’s voice was soft, “Let’s try and fix this before we get ejected together.”

—

The whole process took very little time after I grabbed a flashlight for Red. While we worked, I told him about White’s attack on Black, and how even just a tiny bit of blood helped me feel better, which made him go quiet while we finished up. Once the lights came back on, the two of us walked to medbay, where Yellow was tending to Orange. Black was nearby as well, standing guard as I sat down on a bed. Seeing me still alive, Orange moaned fearfully, and I put my hands up.

“It’s okay! It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt anyone.” I tried not to feel uncomfortable with the unwelcoming energy in the room, but it was difficult, especially with the way they all looked at me. Red rubbed my arm comfortingly.

“So Mint has an idea for how he can stay fed, without anyone having to die.” The other three crewmates gave us incredulous glances, but Black nodded at him.

“Spill it.” I watched as he began to roll up his sleeve.

“Blood. He’ll probably need about half a pint of blood every month, but that should keep him sated.” Red walked over to the supply cabinets and started pulling out a blood transfusion bag, as well as a needle, tubing, and a rubber band. “Yellow, I’ll need you to do the blood withdrawal, since Orange is, um, well, incapacitated.”

Orange grumbled at him and he glanced away.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I couldn’t let you guys eject Mint.”

After washing her hands, Yellow came over and prepped Red to give blood, wrapping him up with the band and connecting the needle and tubing to the bag, then feeling around for the best vein. I’d never watched this procedure before, and I found it fascinating. Despite not being hungry because of my meal the previous night, I salivated a little at the sight of the blood, which made Red laugh.

“Easy now, you vampire.” I cocked my head at him and raised an eyebrow, which made him chuckle. “Vampires suck blood from humans. ‘S why I called you one.”

“Oh,” I blushed, embarrassed to be compared to another type of monster, but I knew Red meant well.

Yellow removed the needle from Red and bandaged up the insertion spot, then got to work injecting the plasma stabilizer before putting the bag in the fridge. She washed her hands again and sighed to herself.

“That’ll only be good for a month and a half before it starts to break down. I advise you drink it before then.” I nodded at her and then looked back over at Red, who took my hand. Black walked over to lead us out of the room, but pulled us aside in the hallway, standing just inside the stairwell.

“Nothing is changing about your responsibilities, but I want you to first clean up his room,” she pointed to Red, “and then be at your assignments in an hour.” The two of us nodded dutifully and went downstairs, with Black and now Yellow following us so they could change.

I was fine until we entered Red’s room, and all the memories of the previous night flooded back into my brain. The sheer rage I had, the fear stricken across Red’s face, and now the way White’s corpse splayed out on the floor, with hoof and footprints in tacky blood all around him. The splatter on the wall where he’d died had also dried, and I found the smell of death to be overwhelming to my senses. Red hurriedly led me out to the hallway, where I felt I could breathe again.

“Hey, let’s try to make a mask out of a shirt or something, it has to help.” He offered me a small smile, and I shrugged my shoulders.

“Maybe. My sense of smell is way stronger than yours, so even when I’m wearing my helmet and a place has been cleaned, I can tell someone bled there.” The fatigue in my eyes at how frustrating such a sense of smell could be spoke wonders, as Red quickly ran back upstairs, then came back down with a pair of earplugs.

“Try shoving these in your nose alongside that shirt mask.” He talked as I let him into my room. “Just breathe through your mouth and you should be fine. In fact, let me grab a bag and get his body out of there for you so you can clean up the blood.”

It seemed he wasn’t going to change until his room was cleaned up, which made sense, but I still changed into some untorn clothes so I could avoid messing up any of my spare suits. I waited until Red was carrying the heavy bag containing White’s corpse up the stairs before I dared enter his room again. Surprisingly, the nose plug/mask combination made the smell bearable, and after grabbing cleaning supplies, set to work scrubbing up the blood.

We managed to finish cleaning up early, which was a pleasant surprise. Red sat on the floor and leaned back against his bed, a thin layer of sweat on his brow. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly, and I wiped off my arms, scooting over to sit beside him.

“You okay?” I tilted my head and rubbed his shoulder. Red opened his eyes and smiled, lowering his head and chuckling.

“Yeah. Just been a whirlwind of a day, I suppose.” He looked up at me and I watched a flicker of fear spark in his eyes as his expression fell. “Are  _ you  _ okay though?”

Given everything that had happened in the last 24 hours, no, I wasn’t, but I didn’t want to tell him that. We had to get back to our tasks, and I didn’t want him to be overly-concerned with me. We’d have time to talk later.

“Yeah, I’m fine, but we can talk more about it tonight, if you want.” I gave his arm a reassuring squeeze.

Red looked at me fondly and yet even now, a bit protectively too. We held each other’s gaze for another moment before he lifted a hand up to my jaw and pulled our heads together, placing a tender kiss on my lips.

That simple act completely melted away my façade, and once again, I found myself welling up with a shaky breath. When we pulled away, he stroked my cheek and wiped away a tear.

“You know, it’s okay to not be okay. But I understand you don’t want to worry me.” His voice was warm and I closed my eyes, nuzzling into him.

I didn’t feel like I deserved him, a human who had been so understanding in the face of it all. A human who told me he didn’t feel like he really knew me, and yet he’d defended me anyway once he found out the truth. I was so lucky to have him, and only hoped he knew that I was appreciative.

“Thank you, Red…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty, SO, I can confirm that there are two chapters left. I may or may not add a small, vague epilogue, but the entire story will be wrapped up in two chapters. Something for y'all to look forward to. c:


	12. At Last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated E for explicit sexual content. If you want to avoid it, read until the line: “Me too.” His fingers pushed through my hair and lowered my head to his, resuming our earlier kisses.
> 
> The rest of the chapter contains sexual content, so stop there and move onto the next chapter once you reach that line.

Everyone kept their distance from me when I went back up to perform my tasks, to the point I only ever saw Red. Of course, since I didn’t have to pretend to be human anymore, I skipped dinner and went to my room, lying in the dark as I contemplated how to tell Red everything I’d gone through with White for the past three months. How do you tell someone that you’d been cheating on them, even if it was against your will and for their protection? Turning over to face the wall, I shivered into my blanket, when Red arrived at my door.

“Come in.” Red uneasily stepped into the dark, finding his way to the lamp to turn it on. Once he could see me, he sat down on my bed.

“Hey, how are you holding up?” My response was a simple shrug. 

“I don’t really know how to answer that.” He remained silent, so I sighed and rolled over to face him. “There’s just a lot I have to tell you, and I don’t know where to start.”

I watched as Red laid down next to me, wrapping an arm around my waist to pull me close while my gaze lowered, until my eyes finally shut.

“You’re not going to be happy when you hear any of this, I just… want to put that out there now. But, I want you to know that the reason for all of it was to keep you safe. From the very beginning, White wanted to kill you. He knew that you were my soft spot, and… I was prepared to do anything to keep you alive.” Red’s hand stroked my back and I heard him acknowledge my words under his breath.

“I understand, Mint. Or, well, I might not be able to fully understand, but I appreciate you wanting to protect me.” He squeezed me as a way to reassure me, and I nuzzled into him a bit.

“So… um… it started the first day he arrived. He cornered me in electrical, pestered me about how few people I’d killed, and when I convinced him not to kill until we were well into space, he…” Trying to get the words out was a nightmare, and I wanted to puke. “He told me, ‘if I can’t kill anyone, then I need to get the energy out another way,’ or whatever. Basically… he wanted free reign to my body.”

I instinctively curled inward as I waited for Red’s response. His strokes on my back stopped, but he didn’t pull away from me.

“I see. And this was to protect me?” I looked up at him and nodded.

“Yeah. Cuz I’m an idiot, I-I guess I thought he’d leave you alone if we did it the one time that night. But afterwards, before he left, he told me he’d stay away from you if we… if we kept it up. So my hands were tied, I’m sorry. I never wanted to do it. I-in fact, before him, I’d never… I’d never had sex with anyone.”

My heart was racing and I felt my breathing get shallower. I watched as Red’s eyes flickered with pity for me, something I wasn’t expecting, and he pulled me in closer for a hug, resting his head against mine.

“I’m so sorry he put you in that situation, and even more so that your first time was with him.” Closing my eyes again, I focused on the rhythm of his breathing and synchronized it with my own, which helped calm me down.

“There was one time, though, where I sought him out. But… it was out of necessity. I would have gone to you a million times over before him if… if I could have told you the truth about, well, what I am.” This time, I felt Red pull back to look at me, and I opened my eyes, which had reverted to black.

“Necessity…?” His brow lifted and I went red, realizing I was now about to give him a brief introduction to my species’ reproduction.

“Well… twice a year, my species goes into heat.” Already his expression was turning into one of mild bewilderment, which I tried to ignore. “The only way to get rid of it is… to become pregnant. Essentially. A-and before you ask, we’re not split male and female. Everyone is capable of fertilizing and laying eggs.”

“Eggs??” His voice cracked upon speaking. I turned my head away, now significantly more embarrassed than I already was, and sighed.

“Yes, eggs. I’m sorry that’s weird to you, can I continue?” Red chuckled weakly and hugged me a little tighter, letting me know I could.

“A-anyway, I entered my heat about a month and a half ago, and…” I released a loud sigh; the guilt from keeping this in was finally about to overflow, but I couldn’t back down now. Nor did I even want to. I wanted him to know everything, so that way we could start our relationship over. We basically were anyway, since we’d be separated for a month, and now we had the opportunity to be completely honest with each other, even if it was just me needing to come clean.

“I got him to… impregnate me. I passed the eggs, got rid of them, and there’s no trace of that mess left. He didn’t even know it was possible until I gave them to him after they died.” I paused for a moment, realizing how that sounded. “They have to be incubated right away or they die. And I gave them to him as a snack. I know humans eat eggs, same thing. Plus it kept him from killing anyone else for a little while longer.”

Red sighed, rolling onto his back and putting his hand to his forehead. I rested my head on his chest and wrapped an arm around him, watching as he glanced down at me, then shook his head with a smile.

“This is… a lot. I won’t lie.” I shrunk back a little, causing him to look at me warmly. “It’s okay, I don’t mind. I wanna learn.”

I’d been prepared to defend myself and the differences between our species again, so his sudden addition made me blush, and I glanced away for a moment.

“O-oh! Well, thank you. Still, I’m sorry for cheating on you, it was wrong, even if it was for your protection. I’ve felt awful about it from the very first moment I agreed to anything with White.”

Before I could say any more, Red pulled me on top of him, and I sat up on his stomach, looking down at him curiously. Leaning forward, I tilted my head, which he carefully took in his hand, stroking my cheek with his thumb. A blush returned to my face, and I glanced away as he smiled.

“I know.” His other hand moved to hold my head as well. “You’re a very genuine individual, Mint. I’ve felt that since day one. Even though you couldn’t tell me about your true identity for your own safety, you were still true to yourself in every other way, and even if you aren’t human...” Red’s eyes met mine and I saw a fire burning inside of them.

“I fell in love with you anyway.”

The corners of my mouth pulled up into a big smile, and I lowered myself onto him to hug him tightly.

“Thank you… hearing that is like a weight off my chest, honestly.” Resting my chin on his chest, I gazed into his eyes lovingly, sliding my hands up to his shoulders to pull myself further up his body. Our lips met and I felt him place his hands on my ass, causing me to gasp softly. Red chuckled, a mischievous smile forming on his lips.

“Can’t help myself, hope that’s okay.” I put a finger to his lips and pushed off of him a little bit.

“It is, so long as you’re okay with loving a monster. Things will be different, but… I want them to work out.” My hair fell over my eyes and I glanced away, the flicker of doubt reigniting for a split second. Instinctively, Red turned my head to face him again, his expression the kindest I’d ever seen it.

“Me too.” His fingers pushed through my hair and lowered my head to his, resuming our earlier kisses. This time, our fingers interlaced, and I took the opportunity to slide a little further down his body to push my groin to his.

The small jolt he made caused me to smirk involuntarily, and he pulled away to scoff sarcastically at me.

“Oh yeah?” His erection grew the more I slowly rubbed against him, which he flexed against me in a vague attempt to tease me back. As I slid down his body, I tugged on his pants, pulling them down to his knees, before moving my head to his cock and giving it a teasing lick. His eyes narrowed at me playfully, and I looked up into them as I shifted my tongue back, watching the surprise on his face as a much longer tongue wrapped around him. I slid his cock deep into my mouth and his head dropped back to the pillow as a long, pleasured moan slipped out from him. The extra length of my tongue ensnaring his erection was apparently too much for him, because he placed a hand on my head and started to push me away, laughing softly.

“A-alright, Mint, slow down. You’ve already done plenty of this for me.” I let him slip out of my mouth and retracted my tongue as I tilted my head curiously. To my surprise, he sat up, pushed his pants off the rest of the way, and grabbed my waist, pulling me down to the bed as he sat up so I was looking up at him. The moment his hands took hold of my waistband, I instinctively grabbed them to stop him, my heart racing.

“It’s okay, Mint. You’re okay.” I looked to the side, my chest rising and falling with each heavy breath, and the tips of my fingers blackened as my claws shifted out, gripping his wrists tightly. Red relaxed his hands and sat back on his legs once I released him.

“We don’t have to start there, if you’re not comfortable.” I looked back up at him as he gently rubbed my knee. My eyes had gotten redder as I tried not to cry, which I blinked away quickly.

“S-sorry… I think… I think my body’s still afraid you’re gonna get scared when you…” I clenched my teeth and turned my head to the side, the heat returning to my nose as I rubbed my eyes with both hands, trying to suppress the tears.

“Shh, it’s okay, Mint, really.” Red lowered himself on top of me and pressed his lips to my neck, and I tilted my head back in response. The feeling of all his weight on top of me, and his elbows pressed into the mattress on either side of my body, it made me feel _safe_ , and slowly I moved my hands beside my head and closed my eyes.

“ _I… I trust you, Red_.” The words were shaky, but sincere.

Although I kept my eyes shut, I felt as Red kissed around my neck, then down to my shoulder, before he rolled my shirt up and nibbled on my collar bone, causing me to shiver. My second mouth rippled underneath his stomach, and I almost pushed him away. I was still mortified that I would somehow hurt him, or that he’d get too freaked out by the weirdness of my body, but I promised him I would trust him.

Red’s tongue slid down to my nipple, where he began to draw circles, and I clenched my legs around him. Biting my lip, I felt my eyes flicker behind their lids. A low growl rose up in my throat, but by the time it reached my lips, it’d had turned into more of a sensual groan. To my utter shock, Red placed a hand along the seam of my second mouth and eased several of his fingers in.

“W-what are you-” Before I could finish, he teased my second tongue with his fingertips, and I gasped, my second mouth opening up to lick his arm as my teeth brushed over his skin delicately. My face went pink and turned to look away in a hurry, earning a laugh from Red.

“I’d be lying if I said your giant stomach mouth wasn’t a little intimidating, but doing stuff like this helps.” He sat back on his legs and slid his fingers up the hooks on my tongue, pressing his thumb down on the corner as if to hook my second mouth like a fish. The blush on my face remained, but I glanced up at him and watched him smile down at me.

“See, Mint, there’s nothing to fear.” Removing his hands from my mouth, Red pressed on the underside of the flap and allowed it to close on its own, before he leaned down and kissed me from the very tip of it all the way down to the top of my boxers. This time, he wrapped his fingertips around the waistband, looking up at me for approval to go further, and I nodded slowly at him.

Nothing would be immediately weird, since he’d already seen me naked the night before, but as he tugged my boxers off, I felt panic start to set in again. Red resumed kissing me, now working his way between my legs until he noticed the seam for my groin. I felt him press a finger to it, and my breaths turned to light gasps.

“I-I’m a little sensitive, so… here…” Using the muscles in the flap, I rolled it back, revealing the tip of my ovipositor sticking out from where it rested inside of me, my vagina still closed. Red pushed the flap back against my flank, resulting in a small shudder from me, before sliding a finger around my ovipositor.

“You said you’ve got both parts?” His fingertip trailed over the lip of my vagina, which was already beginning to self-lubricate. “I think I’m starting to see that.”

I kept my eyes shut tight and looked away, trying desperately to focus on the sensation of him playing with me, and not the still-present fear of rejection as things progressed. Everything he was doing to me felt _great_ , but the anxiety was still preventing me from totally enjoying myself. Still, the more he massaged the space between my ovipositor and where it sat, the more I relaxed, and it wasn’t long before it began sliding out onto the bed.

“Woah, you’re really packin’, huh?” I sighed loudly, earning a chuckle from Red as he sat up, taking a long look at my whole piece. The moment I felt him wrap a hand around it, I gasped, peeking a glance down at him, where I saw him giving me a rather seductive look as he squeezed me. A soft moan echoed from my lips in response. Red released me long enough to pull his shirt off and toss it aside, picking my ovipositor up again, this time at the tip, and played with the ends which were still hugging each other.

Lowering his head down, he slid his tongue all around the tip, using his saliva to relax the ends. I was transfixed as he continued the motions that sent pleasurable jolts of energy shooting down my spine and into my ovipositor, when he slid his tongue inside. I cried out, curling my toes up and arching up my back, my hands gripping into my pillow as I tossed my head to the side. My second stomach moaned happily, and I was about to look back down at him when I felt him start pumping my length with his hands. I was incapable of anything other than riding it out, although I peeked just a glance and saw him move to suck on the end while he jerked me off.

White had never done anything like this for me, and as happy as I’d been to do it for Red, I had no idea how nice it’d be to be on the receiving end of it. I tucked my legs up and bit my lip as the wave of an orgasm built up inside of me, my first ever with someone else, until it overflowed and my mouth fell open, loud moans signaling my release as I spilled down Red’s throat. As I rode it out, I felt my breathing slow down.

“Lucky… lucky you. I… only cum from one tip. If it’d been the other, I, heh, I would have made a mess of your cheek.” It was hard to speak when I was out of breath. Red swallowed every drop and pulled me from his mouth, which made me shudder.

“I spotted it when I first grabbed it, but you missed that.” I finally opened my eyes and made eye contact with him. The smile on his face made me blush, and I tilted my head down, giggling softly. “You’d sucked me off so many times, I had to repay the favor.”

“Thank you, My first time may have been with White, but you were the first person to get me off.” I rubbed my knee against him. “So really, thank you.”

Red crawled over me and pressed our lips together, and I took the opportunity to run my fingers through his hair. I felt his tongue slide into my mouth and I responded with my own, teasing him with the split tip, while I slowly hiked my leg up over him, accidentally smearing some of the wetness that had leaked from me against his hip. The sensation caused his erection to throb against me and he moaned lightly. And yet, he pulled away and made eye contact.

“Mint… do you want to have sex?” His question caught me off guard and I looked at him with a brow raised.

“Well... yeah? Why do you ask?” One of his hands stroked my cheek.

“I don’t want you to ever feel pressured into it with me. Just because I’m horny and hard doesn’t mean you have to. I know we were just fooling around but… if you ever want to stop, you can tell me. I won’t feel bad.” Leaning his head down, he gave me a soft peck on the forehead.

Just when I thought I couldn’t fall any more in love with him, I felt myself well up a little bit, and I gently laughed back the tears. Both of my hands went to the back of his head and pulled him into a deep kiss.

“Thank you, Red…” I was about to wrap my legs around him and go in for another kiss when he pulled away and smiled.

“Luka. My name is Luka.”

All this time on board the ship, I’d become completely accustomed to our work names that I’d almost forgotten my own, and I’d never expected to hear Red’s. I studied his face, and the more I admired him, the more he really felt like a “Luka,” which made my heart swell.

“In that case, my real name is Ben.” I tilted my head at him and watched him have the same moment I did, before he leaned down and kissed me again.

Spreading my legs a bit, I pulled my ovipositor onto my stomach and out of the way, then tilted up my hips, while Luka sat back and pressed the tip of his cock to my slick entrance. The sensation of him pushing in for the first time was so unlike my experience with White, and I released a slow moan as he bottomed out inside of me. It was reminiscent of when I’d been in heat, but being with someone who really meant everything to me was what made the difference, and when he bent forward and interlaced our fingers, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to succumb to the pleasure.

His breath on my neck, the small squeezes he’d give my hand when he’d push into me, the sensation of his skin on mine. All of it drove me wild. A thin layer of sweat formed on his face, and when I rubbed my cheek against his, the pheromones flooded my nose, and I tightened up around him instinctively. Luka groaned and thrust harder, pressing his whole body down onto mine to dominate me as the motions shook the bed. I had one last thing up my sleeve to push him over the edge. Moving my mouth beside his ear, I softly whispered to him.

“ _I love you, Luka_.”

He buried himself in me down to the hilt as he came and moaned deeply, breath heavy as he rode out his own orgasm this time. I stroked his back and peppered his neck with kisses, until he lifted off of me and sat back, panting quietly.

“I love you too, Ben.” He chuckled and rubbed my leg. “That was a dirty move of you to pull, not that I’m complaining.” I arched up my back and looked up at him coyly, a smile forming on my lips.

“I _knew_ you wouldn’t be able to resist.”

We held each other’s gaze for a few more moments before Luka stood up and held out his hand for me to take.

“C’mon, we should probably go take a shower. At least, I’d like to rinse off before passing the hell out,” he smiled as spoke.

My ovipositor retracted as I got up with him, and after we grabbed some towels, we snuck off to the bathroom and tossed them aside, entering the same shower stall together. Still basking in the afterglow, he pressed me against the wall and wrapped his arms around me, our lips meeting as we made out under the falling water. Time seemed to stand still in this moment, and I couldn’t have even begun to say how long we were in there for. By the time we made it back to my room, it was almost 0200 hours, and after quickly changing the sheets, we plopped down in bed together and switched off the light, embracing each other in the dark.

“Shame we won’t get much sleep.” Luka snickered, and I gave him a few pecks on the cheek.

“Mmm, I don’t care,” I nuzzled up into his chest and closed my eyes, feeling exhaustion settling in. He responded by hugging me tightly and placing a kiss on my head.

Luka fell asleep almost instantly, but I had some time to think before I joined him. I had no idea how we’d manage a relationship after we went back home, but I knew in my bones that that was what I wanted to do, and I had to do whatever it took to persuade Black to not out me upon our return. I didn’t think she liked me as a person anymore, especially since I wasn’t a person, so I knew it was going to be an uphill battle, but honestly, I didn’t care.

Finding a way to live happily with the love of my life was worth it.


	13. This is It

The following month and a half flew by for our small crew, the end of our assignment in sight as we turned the ship back towards earth. Things had returned to… relative normalcy, with Orange speaking to me again more readily, and Yellow only doing so when she had to. Black avoided me most of the time. I was probably a reminder of her failings as a captain, how Blue and Lime had died, and that two imposters had been on board right under her nose.

I knew that she would alert the authorities of my alien identity the moment we landed, which would be a death sentence for me. If Luka and I wanted any chance of being together, I was going to have to talk to Black, sooner rather than later.

My assignments for the week were once again storage and cafeteria. I’d finished up much faster than usual, and took the opportunity to slip off to navigation, where I knew Black would be. An eerie sense of déjà vu swept over me as I passed through weapons, thinking about when I was saving Black from White’s attack, and suddenly, I found myself wondering what his real name had been. Now it was just a piece of information lost to time.

I knocked on the wall as I entered the room, while Black stood over the ship’s console, not turning to face me. Initially, I remained at the door, but when she didn’t turn around, I began walking over, only for her to spin towards me with a gun drawn and cocked. My face paled and I threw my hands up in immediate surrender.

“Don’t take another step towards me, Mint.” Her voice was firm and I shook nervously, nodding.

“I-I’m sorry, Black. I just wanted to talk. Why… do you have a gun?” It was the first weapon I’d seen on the ship, and while I wasn’t surprised that she had one (or was willing to use it on me), it was still a surprise to see one at all.

“Captains each get their own laser pistols to use in the event of mutiny or crew threat. I’ve had mine locked up in my room this entire time, but ever since you revealed yourself, I’ve kept it on me.” Black’s eyes narrowed and she kept the gun aimed at me. “You said you wanted to talk?”

I did, but not with a gun pointed at me and standing in the middle of a room. Shrugging my shoulders, I nodded my head towards one of the chairs and slowly lowered my hands.

“Yeah, but can I sit? I’m not gonna attack you. I think that’s obvious by now.” Black didn’t immediately stand down, but after a few seconds she lowered the gun and moved to one of the chairs to sit as well.

“Fine, what do you want to talk about, Mint?” Her expression remained unchanged, but her voice softened, and I exhaled in mild relief. I had to choose my words carefully here, but really I just wanted to be honest with her and try to repair our broken friendship.

“I’m sorry, for everything I put you through. Honestly. I know you wanted to do a good job as captain, and all things considered, you’ve been an _amazing_ captain.” Black rolled her eyes.

“Thanks for patronizing me. I’m sure I could have done an even better job if you weren’t here though.” Her words were sharp, but I let them roll over me, then shook my head.

“Actually, if I weren’t here, everyone would be dead. And frankly, I can’t guarantee that your future missions will go this smoothly either. There’s an entire federation of species that wants to see humans stay within their solar system, and some of them even want to kill humans off entirely so they can’t expand at all.”

The pit in my stomach grew as I watched Black’s eyes widen, and I sighed, leaning back in my chair. Truth be told, she was probably the first human to ever know about this greater plan. It was risky, considering she would probably tell others, but really I just wanted her to get out while she could, and perhaps be with Yellow.

“I was sent here to kill everyone on board, and instead I found love and refused to hurt anyone. Even Blue, technically. I really didn’t want to hurt him. Him being a trigger-happy asshole was his fault, and like I said, killing him both protected and fed me so I could go without hurting anyone else. Actually,” I sat forward and rested my arm on my knees, “The day the food chute backed up? That was me. I was trying to get us sent back to earth; cut the mission off more quickly.”

Black let out a sudden laugh and shifted back in her seat. Rubbing her eyes, she shook her head and looked at me.

“Wow… that’s… something.” The smile she gave me felt like the kindest one in a long time, and I offered one in return, hoping perhaps I was getting through to her.

“Once we get back to earth, I’m not gonna be a killing machine. I don’t know much about earth, but Lu- I mean Red, he told me there were still wide open spaces with plants and no humans for miles. I could live there, hunt animals freely like I did on my home planet. I don’t need to kill anyone. The only reason I did here was because I didn’t have any other options.”

Black had lowered her head to her hand in thought. She remained silent, and I watched as she turned her head to look out the window and into the vastness of space, the fog of distant thoughts filling her eyes.

“To tell you the truth, Mint, I never quite believed if aliens were real, even as humanity went further and further into space. MIRA is really good about keeping information from the public. In training, they never prepared us for the possibility that we’d be going on a suicide mission.” Her eyes fluttered and she glanced down at the console.

“My mother went MIA after going on a mission when I was about thirteen. I’d always looked up to her, wanted to do what she did, but when she didn’t come back, I started to doubt everything about my plans. They told us she’d vanished; took an escape pod one day for some reason and never returned. But… I think she was killed. By an alien.”

My instinct told me to reach out and comfort her, but after an admission like that, it seemed inappropriate. Instead, I nodded solemnly and quietly hummed my acknowledgement.

“It wasn't until I saw White’s dead body that the thought came back to me, but the moment you showed your true form, I knew. Humans will always be at the mercy of aliens.” Black chuckled to herself and put away her gun. Crossing her legs, she turned to look back out into space, fully relaxing in her chair as she sniffled a bit.

Both sides of the whole situation had valid points. The vast majority of humans who went on these trips into space for research and exploration genuinely wanted to learn, but the humans who funded it all and had all the control wanted to colonize and expand influence into the greater universe. The federation I came from wanted to protect their homes from such invasion, but they had no problem taking it too far, and like I told Black, there were groups among the federation who had no qualms with using the original mission as an excuse and cover for eradicating humans completely.

“I…” It was hard to find the right words to say to her. “I don’t know what the answer is, to the huge problem that the forces way above us are trying to solve. But maybe… you can remove yourself from the equation.” Black glanced over at me, her eyes glossy.

“I know that you and Yellow are close. If you think that the two of you have a future together, then get the hell out of space and be together on earth. I mean, that’s all I’m trying to do with Red.” I fiddled with my hands a bit and tried not to look at her, in the event she was upset with me. What I didn’t expect was her putting a hand on my knee.

“I’m sorry.” My eyes widened and I looked up at her, perplexed and a bit worried that she was going to reiterate her previous threats. Instead, she gave me a rather regretful smile.

“I’m sorry… that I was prepared to eject you off the ship. You’ve become a hardworking, loyal crewmate to us all, and I was blinded by fear that day. I know that… even if I did kill you, we wouldn’t be gaining anything from doing so.” Tears trickled out of her eyes, and I placed my hand on hers, rubbing it with my thumb.

“I understand, Black. I don’t hold any of your reactions against you. I mean, that day, you were acting upon instinct to survive, much like me when I transformed. If you can forgive me for being a monster, then why shouldn’t I forgive you for being human?” I chuckled to myself and looked out the window, briefly glancing back over at Black.

“Are you going to turn me in when we get back to earth?” I opted not to look over at her as I asked.

The words hung in the air as she remained silent, and I began to fear the worst. Her eyes stayed down before finally looking up at me, and I reluctantly turned my head to face her, hoping desperately that she would keep quiet about me.

“Mint... “ One of my brows went up as she paused. “I… won’t say anything. But we should probably make this agreement as a crew, since they’re going to question all of us once we get back.”

I exhaled, relieved, and nodded at Black, sitting back in my chair for a moment before standing up and preparing to leave the room with her. We left for the cafeteria, and upon entering, Black went over and pressed the emergency meeting button. Orange was the first to show up, followed by Luka and Yellow together.

“What’s up, Black?” Luka asked, eyes nervously traveling between me and the captain.

“I’ve come to a decision about what to do when we get back home. I’ve decided... not to out Mint to the authorities, and I wanted you all to know so you don’t reveal him either.”

Luka’s eyes widened, the biggest grin ever on his face. Orange smiled as well, with Yellow lightly smirking as she made eye contact with Black. 

“He’s been helpful, kind, and deserves a chance at a new life on earth. I’ll handle the investigation, I just ask that you all keep it hush hush. Tomorrow we can work out our story.” She waved us off and went back over to nav, followed by Yellow, while Luka ran over and spun me around in a tight hug.

“Oh my god, Ben! We’re safe!” He made no real attempt to hide the fact he was welling up a little bit. I stroked the outside of his helmet and giggled, his joy infecting me as well, my eyes flickering happily.

—

That night, Luka came to my room with an idea for how we could repay Black for her kindness. Using my PDA, we snapped a picture together, and after I snuck through the vents to security, managed to print it out on the portable printer. The two of us signed it with a thank you and I placed it on my nightstand so I wouldn’t forget it.

—

As I finished grabbing my belongings from my room, stuffing the photo into my pocket, I heard Luka call out to me that everyone else was heading up top. The investigation wouldn’t take too long, and with our airtight story and MIRA notably reluctant to follow up on weak leads, I had full confidence in our crew to keep me safe. I was summoned to another room to speak with an agent, who went over the usual debriefing questions. Before long, I was being escorted off the Skeld alongside everyone else, and we all tried not exchanging glances as the cleaning crew boarded the ship. Like I’d anticipated, no one had renewed their assignment.

When I’d first arrived on earth, I had been dropped off after every security checkpoint, right near the ship docks, so I’d never really seen much more than these few buildings. As we all passed through the exit checkpoints (the bioscan one was daunting, but a rush of energy to transform myself as human as possible made it a breeze), we entered a shuttle to take us from the compound back to the main base, and I watched as more trees came into view, as did the large monolithic buildings from the nearby city. The foliage scattered the closer we came, and I looked up into Luka’s eyes as the realization that I was going to be plunged into a human city grew.

“Hey, you’ll be okay,” he whispered to me, “It’s only till we get settled, then we’re going far away from anything like this.”

I slowly nodded and turned to look at the others. Black and Yellow were staying quiet but held each other’s hand tightly, which made me smile. Orange probably had a family she was going back to, judging by the way she was feverishly typing on her personal, tiny PDA, tears trickling from her eyes as she giggled at the messages she read on it.

Finally arriving at the terminal, it was time for our final goodbyes. Orange had to leave quickly for a waiting vehicle, and we all hugged her before she ran off. Yellow and Luka went over to a desk to call for a ride and I was left with Black standing near the exit doors. Rooting around in my pocket, I pulled out the photo and handed it to her, a small blush on my face.

“Here, something to remember us by. Proof that aliens do exist, and that not all of them are bad.” I chuckled a bit and glanced away. Black grinned as she inspected the photo, unzipping her bag and sliding it in to keep it from bending.

“Thanks, Mint, though I don’t think I could ever forget you.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “And… thanks for understanding, well, everything. I hope you and Red have a long life together.”

“Same, for you and Yellow.” This time, Black was the one who laughed.

“Thank you.”

To my surprise, she pulled me into a tight hug, and I wrapped my arms around her in turn. We’d been through so much, and even through all the accusations and deaths, she’d defended me until she no longer could. Even though we’d probably never see each other again, I was glad we’d gotten to be friends.

“Hey, Marci, they’ve got a car waiting for us at the other end of the terminal. We gotta hurry though.” Yellow popped back over and grabbed her bags, and Black, or Marci, pulled away from me and took the handles of her own.

“Right.” Glancing back at me, she gave me a small salute with her fingers and began following Yellow. “Bye, Mint.”

I nodded at her and watched as the two of them got smaller and smaller, until they eventually faded into the crowd of people, and only then did I realize that I could exhale. Luka walked back over to me and kissed my forehead, hugging me with his arm.

“We’ve got a few minutes before ours arrives.” Looking down at me, he gave me a light squeeze. “You okay Ben?”

Tears had come to my eyes, but I wiped them away, sniffling a bit. As sad as it was to say goodbye to our crewmates, I had a bright future ahead of me with Luka, and that was going to keep me moving forward, no matter what.

“Yeah. A little sad, but… all endings are.” I took his hand and leaned into his chest, nuzzling my head against him. “Now, we’re starting something new.”

Pulling away, I looked out at the enormous city and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly.

“And I’m ready for it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again so much for reading!!! I'm extremely happy with this fic, and I'm glad it meant so much to so many of you! I have another fic in the works, but I have no idea when it's going to come out, so I won't make any promises. But me, Mint, and Red all thank you so much for taking the time to read their story!


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